Recently, it came to my attention that I have a problem. Maybe it was after I looked up the etymology of the word sneakers. It could have been when I checked to see if Ben Stein was still alive after seeing a bottle of Clear Eyes. Could have been when I started finding and playing game show themes to fit the mood. In any case, someone brought it up, and I will admit to it.

I have Googlitis.

According to the Urban Dictionary (the most credible source known to the Internet,) Googlitis is “an obsession with Googling, self-Googling, or otherwise using the Google search engine to answer all of life’s questions.”

If this sounds familiar, then you probably have Googlitis in some form.

For example, one minute you can be doing something normal like listening to Pandora, and the next you are furiously searching for the song that goes “step from the road to the sea to the sky and I do believe it, we rely on” because you just have to hear it.

In my experience, it isn’t always awful, but you have to be careful.

If unmonitored, Googlitis can also lead to multiple tabs disorder, looking up everyone you ever met and spending three hours on Wikipedia hopping from one related article to another.

To anyone that reads this column and realizes that hey, I might have Googlitis, here’s a piece of advice. The worst thing you can do when you feel the urge to Google is to suppress it.

If you hear something that’s familiar but you just can’t place it, look it up. At the same time, remember, it’s not how much you know that counts, but how you use it.

When your life is nothing but information, you can find yourself unable to use it. It takes wisdom to determine which fact is important and which you should throw away after that new fact smell has worn off.

And yes, I have Googlitis, but I will do good with it, not showing off. I will try to make relevant points instead of becoming that guy. You know, the one that just has to one up everybody with his vast knowledge of useless facts. That guy.

By the way, sneakers? That dates back to 1895, when police imported Indian rubber to make their shoes silent while they were patrolling.