Students Not That Web-Savvy, Rely Mainly On Google: Report

Students Not That Web-Savvy, Rely Mainly On Google: Report

The generation known for making a name out of Facebook and having hands attached to iPods, cell phones and laptops is apparently not that web-competent. A study out of Northwestern University finds that students aren't nearly as adept at using the Internet as many believe them to be.

Students, evidently, blindly lean on Google as their one-stop shop for web research.

Northwestern's news center
has more:

[Students] trust Google so much that a Northwestern University study has found many ... 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 paper, written by Northwestern associate communications professor Eszter Hargittai and published in the International Journal of Communication, lists the top pages for research as Yahoo!, MapQuest, Wikipedia, AOL, Facebook and Microsoft. Additionally, students often trust dot-gov or dot-edu sources over other sites.

According to Macleans' reading of the paper, students pay little attention to the websites they're visiting. Students often cited the search engine, rather than the website, as the source of pertinent information.

How exactly does Google rank its sources? Through a complicated algorithm called PageRank, named for founder Larry Page.

How much do you lean on Google? Let us know below.

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