Are people biased in their use of search engines?

@article{Keane07, abstract = {Search-engines are among the most used resources on the Internet. Google [2], for example, now hosts over eight billion items and returns answers to queries in a fraction of a second; thus realising some of the more far-fetched predictions envisioned by the pioneers of the World Web Web [1]. In the present study, we assess whether people are biased in their use of a search-engine; specifically we assess whether people tend to click on those items that are presented as being the most relevant in the search engine’s result list (i.e., those items listed at the top of the result list). To test this bias hypothesis, we simulated the Google environment systematically reversing Google’s normal relevance-ordering of the items presented to users. Our results show that people do manifest some bias, favouring items at the top of result lists, though they also seek out high-relevance items listed further down a list. Later, we discuss whether this bias arises from people’s implicit trust in search engines such as Google, or some other effect.}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, author = {Keane, Mark T. and O'Brien, Maeve and Smyth, Barry }, citeulike-article-id = {2386633}, doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1314215.1314224}, issn = {0001-0782}, journal = {Commun. ACM}, keywords = {information\_foraging, search\_engines, web\_epistemology}, month = {February}, number = {2}, pages = {49--52}, posted-at = {2008-02-18 14:56:09}, priority = {0}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {Are people biased in their use of search engines?}, url = {http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1314215.1340914}, volume = {51}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - Keane07 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2386633 TI - Are people biased in their use of search engines? JF - Commun. ACM VL - 51 IS - 2 SP - 49 EP - 52 AD - New York, NY, USA PB - ACM SN - 0001-0782 N2 - Search-engines are among the most used resources on the Internet. Google [2], for example, now hosts over eight billion items and returns answers to queries in a fraction of a second; thus realising some of the more far-fetched predictions envisioned by the pioneers of the World Web Web [1]. In the present study, we assess whether people are biased in their use of a search-engine; specifically we assess whether people tend to click on those items that are presented as being the most relevant in the search engine’s result list (i.e., those items listed at the top of the result list). To test this bias hypothesis, we simulated the Google environment systematically reversing Google’s normal relevance-ordering of the items presented to users. Our results show that people do manifest some bias, favouring items at the top of result lists, though they also seek out high-relevance items listed further down a list. Later, we discuss whether this bias arises from people’s implicit trust in search engines such as Google, or some other effect. KW - information_foraging KW - search_engines KW - web_epistemology AU - Keane, Mark AU - O'Brien, Maeve AU - Smyth, Barry PY - 2008/02// UR - http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1314215.1340914 ER -