Googlisation

Is this a word yet?

If not, it should be!

Judging by the number of hits on Google (of course) it is fast becoming one that dictionary editors must consider adding with its variations very soon.

What brought this thought about was a heart-warming story in Al-Wasat’s letters page [translate] where a young man was bringing to the editor’s attention that he (the editor of the paper, Al-Jamri) should not go far to prove the value of Google – as he referred to [translate] in one of his articles – but look much closer to home!

The young man – Hassan Fadhul – tells us his story with a very rare illness he has been suffering from Hypoparathyroidism and no doctor in Bahrain nor France had found a cure or even medication for. They basically told him that he’s got to just live with it. The young man googled it and found that others shared his predicament. Through his search he also identified and registered with an American society concerned with similarly afflicted persons. It was through them he was put in contact with a pioneering treatment and got to personally know a few of his fellow patients.

I wish Hassan Fadhul all the luck and much success in his life. I hope that now that he has the condition under control, thanks to Google, that he carries on life as normal and that ultimately a cure is found for his condition.

This brings me to a thought I have come to fully accept and encourage: one of the most important talents one can nurture now is to hone the skill of searching on the Internet; Google and other search engines in particular, and then add the skill of filtration in how to accept or reject the information gathered.

This googling (note the small letters) will become one of the most important skills one can get, and I would not be too surprised for an enterprising university offering courses on how to get better at it. I would not be further surprised if that pioneering university is located at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA either!