Google Has Ruined the Barroom Debate

Back in the day, the barroom debate was a staple in nighttime entertainment among friends at the local watering hole (I assume). Arguing with your friends over a beer about what the most popular food in America is or who won the Oscar for best picture in 1993 was a fun way to pass the time and a nice way to have a friendly heated debate with your friends as well. Obviously, this doesn't only apply to bars, but it's a likely setting. However, now that we have smart phones, people are so quick to google any kind of question that comes up so as to ascertain the correct answer, that the debates are no longer a reality. Now, I have to confess, I actually stole this blog idea from an episode of How I Met Your Mother, where the main characters have this exact conversation with one another. For those of you with Netflix, it's episode 6 season 7 "History vs. Mystery", and it's the opening scene (actually, the entire episode is about technology changing dating now that I think about it...). How often has it happened though that you get into a disagreement with a friend over some fact of some sort, and instead of arguing about it (which can be pretty fun), somebody just googles it? It kinda makes us a bit of know-it-alls, doesn't it? I've also noticed that it tends to really annoy older people. My grandparents, for example, would always get frustrated when somebody would just google something without having to think about it (especially my grandfather, who loved crosswords. Googling a crossword hint is probably a cardinal sin in some religion somewhere). This phenomenon of doing a quick internet search for useless facts has changed our "barroom debate" dynamic, and I think it's a bit of a shame. It was fun, and now it's gone. I'm kind of reaching with this blog post, but I think you all get the gist of what I'm saying.