Riddle Me This, Google

British scientists appear to have puzzled out the famous head scratcher: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Research points to the chicken, but I've got a more pressing conundrum to consider: Is my memory slipping because I rely on Google fifty times a day, or do I rely on Google because my memory's slipping?

Whether you're twenty or seventy, you've wondered the same thing. Once upon a time, we accepted knowledge limbo: the uneasy minutes, hours, even days before we remembered the right answer or got our hands on an encyclopedia, tracked down a know-it-all friend, or buttonholed a source. Nowadays, we get skittish if our laptop, phone, or tablet doesn't give us a response within seconds.

Yet I fear our reliance on electronics makes us less self-reliant. If we gave ourselves a couple of minutes, the capital of Norway might bubble up from our memory, along with the formula for circumference, and the name of the group that sang The Power of Love in the 80's.

Alas, we don't have the luxury of time. Work deadlines come lightning fast because we're expected to use every digital shortcut at our disposal.

Search engines are more pleasant to work with than some people. They never rear back and demand, "Why do you want to know?" They never say, "Every fifth grader knows that."

My parents had a set of encyclopedias that I, the eldest, used from elementary school until college. My youngest sister, eight years my junior, used the same set and no teacher complained her information was outdated. Today, search engines ferret out the latest updates, developments, and complications.

When power went out in the northeast due Hurricane Sandy, Google, Bing and Yahoo were available, but the tools people use to connect with them may have been out of juice. Who or what settled the disputes that came up during board games by flashlight: Is "ruana" really a word? That play's not legal!

Did people hunt for dictionaries and a dusty copy of rules of bridge, or did the opinion of the loudest person in the room prevail? I'm guessing the game players swore they'd never again take a search engine for granted.

To write this blog post, I asked Google four questions—well, three, really. I forgot one answer and had to Google it again. Wouldn't you know the answer to one question sent my thoughts on a different direction than I originally planned.

I count on search engines—and no one has to remind me to use them. Indeed, my fingers start typing before my brain has formulated most questions.

The quick answers I get give me time to ponder other, weighty matters: Do my eyelashes look sparse because of the mascara I glop onto them, or do I glop on mascara because my eyelashes look sparse?

Your turn: Name one of the last four things you typed into a search engine. Did you get the answer you expected?