I joined Dan Russell's Joy of Search group. Russell is a computer scientist and works in Google's Search group. His group gets a challenge from him every so often. It is usually like a Jeopardy! challenge in that it is some far-out business that involves nerdy details, of little or no interest to me. At least that is my reaction so far. I do have Russell's book, "The Joy of Search" and I have read some of it.
Some people are unhappy with the sale of their personal information. I imagine that Google is one of the main sources of such business but I also think that the company is both trying to persuade users that it is doing more to safeguard information that is personal as well as engaging in information campaigns to persuade users of their services of their efforts. Both my wife, a Phd in information technology, and I constantly turn to electronic searching all the time to satisfy curiosity, learn things, answer questions, etc. In an attempt to be more independent and less in Google's power, I set my main browser (Firefox) to use Duckduckgo when searching. I have had it set that way for several months and I do several searches each day. I have come to the conclusion that Google searches satisfy me better than Duckduckgo does. I haven't changed the browser settings yet since I am stubborn and I like to try different things. But more and more, I find I do a search using Duckduckgo and then do one with the Google search and like the Google result better. It may well be that I am biased from using Google for quite a while and knowing where to look for what. I don't think so and I am more and more confident that I will be changing to using Google right away when I search. Not just yet.
Professor Sam Wineberg, Stanford University Graduate School of Education, has a book, "Why Learn History When It Is Already on Your Phone?" That is a wonderful title but a bit limited. It is not just history. Virtually every subject is already on your phone. True, the information is mixed in with propaganda, advertisement, marketing ploys and misinformation, but much of whatever the subject is, indeed, on your phone. And your iPad and that other tablet and your computer.
