Minor Rant about the Internet

[runningdude]

Occasionally, when I’m taking a nap, I’d experience a brief loud buzzing sound, that might jostle me awake, or whatever. I didn’t think much of much - it seemed a perfectly natural reaction to being exhausted. I’m already an insomniac, so weird dreams and sleep things don’t even phase me.

However out of curiosity, I decided to look the buzzing up. Top three hits all attributed it to a sign that I was moving to another plane of conscience or successfully inducing a paranormal out of body experience. Ugg. As a Catholic, I know this is bologna, so it was frustrating that the first thing the internet did was suggest some new age occult nonsense. Anyways, a few hits down, Wikipedia finally informed me it was probably “exploding head syndrome”, which is defined as occasionally hearing briefs buzzes when falling asleep, and is totally harmless. Fair enough.

I’m not looking for any medical advice, but just expressing curiosity. Anyone else have any similar stories when the internet just utterly fails at offering an answer that isn’t at conflict with the your faith/reality?

 

[Della]

All the time! I’ve tried looking up Catholic articles by using certain search words I thought would take me just to them, but found the first hits anti-Catholic websites dedicated to denying the very things I was trying to research. Is it any wonder people have a hard time getting to what’s true and what isn’t?

I saw a guest on the Journey Home program who was working on a system that would bring up what you are actually looking for, but I don’t remember his name or the name of the system (being I’m not a computer person I don’t remember such terms easily). Maybe someone else has heard of it and knows how to get it into their internet search engine.

 

[bhall0689]

That’s why it’s called researching. The internet is sort of like a vast, general “forum” where people can post whatever the hell they want to. Your best best, usually, is to get your information from academic or reputable websites. You usually have to read quite a bit (depending on how complex the topic is), and then draw your own conclusion based on all of the other (often very different) conclusions that you’ve read.

 

[Della]

That’s why it’s called researching. The internet is sort of like a vast, general “forum” where people can post whatever the hell they want to. Your best best, usually, is to get your information from academic or reputable websites. You usually have to read quite a bit (depending on how complex the topic is), and then draw your own conclusion based on all of the other (often very different) conclusions that you’ve read.

That’s true, of course, but oftentimes what’s out there is misinformation of the worst kind. A person has to be quite discerning and some folks simply don’t know what’s reliable and what isn’t just by reading what’s posted on a website. A general rule of thumb, though is that any website dedicated to trashing a religion or any group of people, is not to be trusted. But, alas, and again, there are people who can’t seem to grasp the fact that not everything that titillates is true.