Irony (like Paradise) Lost?

Recently, Google execs found that students using its ubiquitous search engine could find answers to a set questions in 7 minutes flat. Library users took 22 minutes to do the same. Hal Varian, Google's chief economist, exclaimed: "Think about all the time saved! Thirty years ago, getting answers was really expensive, so we asked very few questions. Now getting answers is cheap, so we ask billions of questions a day, like 'what is Jennifer Aniston having for breakfast?' We would have never asked that 30 years ago!" He's right. And yet there isn't a hint of irony when Varian gushes about, of all things, Aniston's eating habits. Google is a wondrous invention. But we've learned nothing in 30 years if "Garbage In, Garbage Out" is all we can boast about. Though none of this rises to the profundity of Milton's "Paradise Lost" and its tale of the Fall of Man, our relentless march toward cultural banality should at least give us pause. (Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for flagging the Google study.)