Isn’t it listed somewhere online? Can’t I just go to my computer and find it? they want to know. Keep in mind, I’ve suggested the live person or reference book option because they can’t find it on-line. But they usually blow off my suggestion anyway.

What’s with that? I’ve gathered more inside information from a helpful administrative assistant in a three-minute phone conversation than a thirty-minute web search. But hardly anyone thinks to talk to someone or seek more traditional references nowadays.

This seems especially prevalent in younger workers.

"Their reliance on the Internet seems to have blanked out any knowledge of research tools that I grew up with in the Pleistocene Era," a 40-something producer at CBS News told me.

Just the other day his 20-something year old employee asked his advice for finding a company’s phone number after having failed to find it on their website. This, he says, "From someone who was two feet from a telephone, six feet from a phone book and one flight of stairs from our reference library. The idea that facts can be found in books sometimes comes as a surprise."

It could have something to do with the way they have grown up communicating.

"Young knowledge workers tend to be hypercommunicative," says an article in SoftBase reprinted from Information Week. While most knowledge workers use either written or spoken communication, these young employees "have more variations and protocols, including e-mail, instant messaging, broadband Internet, wireless, and much more," says the article.

Even when people sit next to one another, their primary method of communication is instant messaging (a type of e-mail that happens in real time with the sender expecting a reply immediately.) They also view e-mail differently, stressing the need to communicate and get responses quickly.

But this addiction to instant gratification when it comes to getting data is catching. Workers of all ages seem to think information should be available in a nanosecond. Even for those who grew up thumbing through handsomely bound encyclopedias and library reference books, it doesn’t much occur to them to go to a book.

Why would it when you’ve got resources like HighWired.com (not defunct) that provided high school teachers and students with answers through a direct link to the Ask Jeeves questions and answer service?

Why bother talking to someone when you can just hit a few key strokes to get what you need? Well, there are some things that can’t be replaced. Like humans who are in the know and still like to be helpful from time to time.

So next time you want to know something, don’t limit your resources to the Internet. Check out a book. Or try saying this to a person: "I have a problem and I’m wondering if you can help." They will probably stop what they’re doing and listen and potentially be your best link to what you want to know.

© by Andrea Kay