A study by the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future reports search engine users shows that people don’t believe everything that appears in the top 10 results.
The survey found that only 51% of people trust information provided by search engines, down from 62% in 2006. Google, as the most popular search engine in most of the world, isn’t trusted by nearly half (49%) of the people who use it.
How can people be so cynical – that result for shady SEO’s creating spammy affiliate site typosquatting a premium brand is part of Google Goodness (remember no hand edits)
The Internet is perceived by users to be a more important source of information for them — this over all other principal media, including television, radio, newspapers, and books.
So over half of all people really distrust media in general. This is a healthy dose of skepticism, but why do people still fall for politicians’ ‘promises’ and still buy all the questionable products advertised?
Results from the USC study:
Read more at Techcrunch.
