my overactive brain formulated a question this morning. can skin absorb water? it the kind of question my brain comes up with while doing the mundane things such as taking a shower. as soon as i was able to visit google, i asked my question and viola! there was my answer: skin kind of, sort of can absorb water, but only in the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of skin (which is why your fingers turn pruney in the bath). and as long as your skin is coated with enough sebum, it should not absorb water. very interesting, right?
but what struck me today was “how” i gathered this information. when i was a little girl, i used to have tons of questions all the time. i had so many that i couldn’t keep track of them. i had a notebook where i wrote down all my questions and the next time my mom took me to the library, i would find all of my answers. now i have my own personal library via google, but the sad reality of this new form of information gathering comes with great risks. wikipedia is a community authored “encyclopedia”. google grabs the most pertinent website with the most hits. but is it reliable? and what have i given up? i don’t go to the library much anymore. i don’t learn about anything new other than what i was researching. i don’t stumble upon interesting finds; literary synchronicities. if the universe wants me to find something, it has to deal with technology. i’ve become lazy. the answers are all in this little machine. as my eyes glaze over…i keep typing queries into the little box and reading.
i love technology. i just miss the library.
“sigh”