Noted: More recently, University of Wisconsin-Madison, communications scholars have warned that Google?s search recommendations (the list of suggested searches that pop up when you start typing a word using the popular search engine) actually bend people?s perception. Looking at nanotechnology, for example, the study showed that top search suggestions over a few years turned away from business to health concerns. The search recommendations were actually steering more people to look into less-reliable nanotechnology health-issue websites, they found. “Google is shaping the reality we experience in the suggestions it makes, pointing us away from the most accurate information and towards the most popular,” study lead author Dietram Scheufele told USA TODAY in 2010.
Office of Strategic Communication