Hey, I wanted to start this capstone blog about something important. You see, ever since middle school, I have found learning new things to be easy. Ok, maybe not easy, but at least easier than they appear to be for my family. But this always confused me. I am not particularly smart. So then, why does everything feel easier? The answer: I learned how to ask the internet a question.
My first computer was a barely functional Windows Vista laptop that ran too slow for my mom. But, I received this present at the most crucial point in my life, middle school. It was a time where my world began to expand. Everywhere my teachers were encouraging me to ask questions. And with my limited resources, I figured out that I could rely on Google. It was not a skill learned in school, rather one influenced by it. This is a tragedy.
My first encounter with the idea that asking a computer a question is not common knowledge came with my dad. A similar story to that encounter goes like this: One day he noticed that his new computer stopped showing the name of the random images it displays on the login screen. This image was very nice, and he wanted to know where it was. So he asked me, “How can I get the Windows 10 login screen to display the image locations again?”
I responded that the answer was sitting right in front of him. I typed the question word for word into google, not bothering to format it, and the first result was “How can I display Like what you see? at Windows login?” For this particular instance, the page didn’t work. He just had to update his system. But, this method works. It helped countless times before with questions I had forgotten.
Next was my brother. He challenged my idea that everyone knows how to ask a good question. When he entered college is when I realized this. His first calculus teacher was lax, passing him without ever teaching him the skills he needed for the next class. And so, when he got overwhelmed with this gap, he came to me. The thing is, he could never quite find the words to form the question. Instead, he would give me a barrage of jumbled thoughts for each problem. He knew it in his head but couldn’t express it to me. It was only confirmed when I found that he couldn’t find anything on the Internet that he didn’t already know about. Sometimes on the Internet, you need to cut out the fluff from a question or phrase it differently. It is these skills that become the most useful.
That is why I think it is important that people are taught how to ask the Internet questions. I’m sure that many people like my brother can’t quite form the question they want to ask. Or, like my father, they don’t have the reflex to ask the Internet. And with classes even starting as young as middle school, this wrong can be corrected. Thereby, let’s make everyone’s lives a little easier.
TLDR: Everyone should take a class in middle school about formulating questions to ask the Internet
PS: I did have a class that helped me hone these skills, but it wasn’t until my second year of college. It was far too late and only ever talked about it in terms of getting sources for resource papers.
