Life before Google… was there one?
Caroline Quentin says a big happy 20th birthday to the popular search engine and reveals just why she loves – and loathes – it so much
Caroline Quentin reflects on 20 years of the search engine
It’s almost impossible for me to imagine a life without Google. I rely on it for so much of the information I need to get me through the day. I’d love to say that I use it for intellectual pursuits, but my relationship with the world’s most-used search engine (Baidu is the second, according to Google) is less worthy and more frivolous.
This month, for instance, an example of my search history reads: Who played Miss Ellie Ewing in the TV series Dallas? Easy recipes using leftover aubergine. What is a baby hare called? None of these questions required urgent answers, but, boy oh boy, do I enjoy the immediate gratification of 71,600 results in 31 seconds. The pleasure it gave me to find out that Barbara Bel Geddes (b 1922; d 2005) played Miss Ellie Ewing cannot be understated. I’m always thrilled that, with a simple type and click, I can know nearly everything about nearly anything.
Of course, Google isn’t just great for trivia; on a couple of occasions, accessing the NHS has proved invaluable, and the speed with which I can find a train timetable is fabulous. There are downsides, of course. It’s so easy to be distracted; one minute
I’m searching for a pair of fabric scissors and the next I’m deeply focused on Kim Kardashian’s bum. You might think that all the gardening, cookery and art books I’ve collected over a lifetime are gathering dust, unused, superseded by technology, but when, occasionally, I do take one off the shelf and open its pages, the smell and feel of a much-loved tome brings memories flooding back. The inscription at the front, Darling daughter on your 17th birthday, love Dad, fills me with joy – and that’s not something that happens with a search engine.
I can find out how to plant a Cornus on the internet, but the beauty of illustrations is, for me, far too valuable to be discarded, however old-fashioned it may seem. Google is fantastic for the quick fix, the emergency, the trivial. Information is constantly updated and it’s wonderful to have it all, literally, at my fingertips. So Happy 20th Birthday, Google. I’m glad you are here, but on a chilly winter’s evening when I curl up by the fire, I’m still going to do it with a good book.
Google was founded in September
1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PHD students at Stanford University, California. It was named after a misspelling of Googol, which is a mathematical name for 10 to the power of 100 (that’s 1 plus 100 zeros!)