Pan et al. just published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication an article "In google we trust: users' decisions on rank, positions, and relevance" that has even PC World puzzled.
The authors found that university students do not question Google's rankings in search results: they are therefore likely to limit their information search to Google's first results ("the top of the list") even when these results are not relevant to them.
These findings are not surprising per se. Anyone looking for information on the internet is likeky to browse through Google's initial results rather than through the 36,548th result provided by a benign search.
Nonetheless, the apparent ease of access to just about any information should make us more, rather than less, critical of results. Instead of trusting blindly the search engine, we should consider it as a tool, a powerful tool, at that, that can make our search easier, but should not mute our analytical abilities.
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