A 5-year-old has concluded that adults ask questions because we don't have access to the internet and he feels sorry for us
He's not entirely wrong. But he's also fundamentally misunderstanding what questions are for.
March 31, 2026
Kids Understanding Adults, Sort Of
What Happened
A 5-year-old boy watches his parents and other adults ask each other questions. "What time is dinner?" "What's the weather like today?" "Do you know where my keys are?" "What happened in the news?"
He's also learned to use Google. He types a question into Google. Google gives him an answer. His brain has connected these two things: adults ask questions because they don't know the answer, and you find out the answer by asking Google.
He's observed that when he has a question, he can use Google. He's observed that adults ask questions. Therefore, he's concluded that adults are just stuck in the pre-Google era and don't realize they could just look things up.
He asked his dad "Why are you asking Grandma what time dinner is? You could just ask Google." His dad tried to explain that not all questions can be answered by Google, that conversation has purposes beyond information retrieval, that sometimes asking other people things strengthens relationships. The kid wasn't convinced.
Why This Matters
This belongs on realstupidshit.com because it represents a genuine collision between how kids understand technology and how adults understand communication. To the kid, questions are information retrieval requests. Google answers information retrieval requests. Therefore, asking other people questions seems obsolete.
He's not entirely wrong. You can use Google to find out what time dinner is. You can use Google to find the weather forecast. You can use Google to find news. But that's only part of what questions do in human communication.
Adults ask questions to maintain relationships. To show interest. To spark conversation. To understand other people's perspectives. To make decisions collaboratively. None of those purposes require accurate information. Some of them actively benefit from the uncertainty and discovery that comes from asking another person rather than looking something up.
The Information vs. Communication Divide
The core issue here is that the kid has learned to think of questions as tools for acquiring information. Information + questions = Google search. But questions in human communication do other things. They express interest. They invite response. They create space for dialogue.
When his dad asks Grandma what time dinner is, he's not really asking because he needs information. He's probably asking because it's a way to engage with Grandma, to signal interest in what she's doing, to participate in the family dynamic. The information is almost secondary.
But a 5-year-old who's used Google to answer questions is going to see that interaction and think "why doesn't he just look it up?" Because from his perspective, looking something up is what questions are for.
The Generational Shift
This kid is part of a generation that has grown up with instant access to information. For previous generations, asking other people was often the fastest way to get information. You wanted to know something, you asked someone who might know. You didn't have another option.
Now, asking other people is almost never the fastest way to get information. Google is faster. Wikipedia is faster. Siri is faster. Asking a human takes time and involves them having to think about their response.
So the kid has logically concluded that when adults ask questions, it must be for some reason other than getting information quickly. His best guess is that they just don't know about Google. He's trying to be sympathetic. Poor old grown-ups, stuck asking each other questions when they could just be using the internet.
The Corrective Instinct
What's charming about this situation is that the kid is trying to help. He sees his dad asking a question and thinks "Oh, he doesn't know about Google. I should tell him." He's attempting to solve what he perceives as a problem: adults not having access to instant information retrieval.
In a way, he's right to be confused. If the purpose of asking a question is purely to get information, using Google would be better. But adults ask questions for purposes that have nothing to do with information retrieval. And explaining that to a 5-year-old is surprisingly hard because the distinction between information-seeking and relationship-building isn't obvious to someone who mostly uses questions as Google searches.
Sources
American Psychological Association: "How Questions Function in Human Communication"
Scholastic: "The Role of Questions in Learning and Development"
EdSurge: "How Technology Is Changing How Kids Think About Questions and Information"
NPR: "The Generation That Googles Everything: What Kids Are Missing About Dialogue"