clipped from www.northwestern.edu

Not as Web Savvy as You Think

Young people give Google, other top brand search results too much credibility

EVANSTON, Ill. — Google it. That’s what many college students do when asked to read an excerpt of a play for class, write a resume or find the e-mail address of a politician.

They trust Google so much that a Northwestern University study has found many students only click on websites that turn up at the top of Google searches to complete assigned tasks. If they don’t use Google, researchers found that students trust other brand-name search engines and brand-name websites to lead them to information.

The study was published by the International Journal of Communication.