Google makes me doubt myself. I’m constantly fact checking every little thing I write. Sometimes I Google for links to provide additional information. Other times, I’m double checking my knowledge. Everything takes twice as long to write because of all the Googling I do.

Earlier today, I was looking up ecologic bias, an epidemiologic concept. I didn’t want to leave another comment on a public health blog I frequent without refreshing my memory and learning more about it. After typing it into Google, I was presented with almost 21,000 links and clicked through more than 10 to find the one I just linked to.

I had started with a simple concept to clarify but ended up drowning myself in too much information. In the end, I pulled out my old basic epidemiology and genetic epidemiology textbooks which gave me the info I needed in just a few minutes.

The Internet’s good for a lot of things, but books are good for the important ones.