What do I do when my kids ask me questions I don’t know the answer to? I turn to The Almighty Google.
Need to know the square root of 354? Google can answer that in .59 seconds.
Someone has a dire need to know when bread was invented? The Big G can steer you to the answer toot suite.
Crave some quick entertainment? Google works wonders. (Seriously, do this search. You’re welcome.)
But there are some searches that don’t end so well. Some that don’t produce accurate results. Some that could have catastrophic outcomes if seen by a three year-old.
A few years ago, before SEO and page rankings and the internet police, I was trying to find a video to show my young son. He has sitting on my lap as we surfed the web, basking in the glow of my laptop and enjoying the information highway.
We were trying to learn the difference between beavers and otters. We saw a cute video of how otters eat, swimming on their backs and cracking open their food with a rock clutched in their adorable little paws.
My son asked, “Do beavers eat that way, too?”
Hell if I know, kid. But I have my resources. Google will know the answer!
So we performed a comparative search.
Yes, we looked up Beaver Eating.
And, let’s just say, the search results were not as clean as they are today.
Splattered all over the first page of our search was eating of another kind. That’s right. If your mind is in the gutter, then it’s at the right restaurant. On the menu? What “beaver” is a euphemism for.
Horrified by the graphic thumbnails on the screen, I panicked. My fingers flew over the keyboard trying to escape the visual horror of that Google return. To something more appropriate. To something I didn’t have to explain. To something that wouldn’t require a therapy visit later.
And then I closed my laptop and moved us over to something more predictable, like the banality of Thomas the Train.
I considered this a lesson learned. Be wary of the Google searches I perform in front of my kids.
Because you never know when The Almighty Google might fail you.
Has a Google search ever steered you wrong in front of young and innocent eyes? I’d love to hear about it!
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