It seems that the only people who are really able to appreciate the value of a good internet search engine are over 30 years old.  With the likes of Google, Yahoo, and hundreds of others, the Search Engine Masters of the Universe are doing everything that they can to figure out how to categorize all of the quintillions of electrons floating out in cyberspace and organize them in a way that people can understand what the hell they all mean.

Some of those electrons are gathered in such a way that they are a lot more desirable than other clumps of lesser quality ones.  It is the former of those that get listed at the top of the SERPS.

But I digress.  Check out this article written by Sarah Kessler about a recent ERIAL study where they tested college kids on their ability to conduct a meaningful search for topics with meaningful interest. (meaning they were thought to be important)

I first read about the study via Yahoo News.  You can do your own search and find plenty of other results too.

It seems that this current generation of 20 somethings (and I would imagine ages 8-17) can't figure out how to find the things they need on the internet when using the top search engines.

I am imagining the study was funded by Google.  But I'm not really sure because I was to lazy to check that out.  It's mentioned in one of the articles that Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries project  carried out the study, but I have not taken the time to check out who funds them. Nor do I really care to.

Maybe it is the cynical side of me that just assume that Google funded it because the gist of the article (written by an unbiased Google staffer of course... in my mind) seemed to blame the college students for their lack of ability in this very important matter.  It is very important after all.  wink, wink.  There are better search engines than Google after all.

Perhaps I'll debate (later on) whether or not it is important or not.  Maybe people can get by without the instant access to any fact they could possibly want to know about.  Maybe it's not important.  Probably it is not as important as the multi-billion dollar Google would like it to be.

Maybe, just maybe, the reason these smart college kids couldn't find what they wanted in order to gather facts for important research articles is that Google (and others) still haven't figured out how to categorize all of those electrons in a proper way.  Meaning that other than things that people are shopping for (where the money is made) the ability to categorize things in a meaningful way, and ability to comprehend way, is still a long way off.

Or maybe it's true (as the Article mentioned above suggests) that college aged kids are just stupid and Google is doing a fine job.

I don't know.  I never went to college.  It seemed like it would be a waste of my time.  20 years past my college aged prime years I am quite sure I made the right decision.

Not to rip on college.  I think it's a great place to waste a half a decade.  Especially if mommy and daddy are paying the bill.  Who knows... you might come out with something important to do.  You might even make some great discoveries.  Either way, college is important for those who need it (and are focused and smart enough to actually use the time their wisely).

What I do know is that I am 42 and I use Google and Yahoo a lot and find them quite useful for anything I wish to find.  But I am an internet marketer.  And I see what I want to see.  Meaning I comprehend what I see differently than other people who don't spend their time online looking for stuff.

The search engines are important to me because I use them to make a living.  Sometimes it seems that the Masters of the Universal Search are doing everything that they can to make my job harder.  They say that they do this to improve the quality of the top showing results.  I am not yet convinced, because democracy is always doomed to fail.

I think that Google especially will be around for a while as a relevant search engine, but in its current form, which seems so big, will be relegated to a mere app that you download 1st into your smartphone, (which already has happened), and in 50 years into that chip you (voluntarily) placed in your head.  Just a tiny bit of code, and Google will be down to a couple dozen engineers and programmers to keep the power on, the electrons properly categorized, and the viruses and worms at bay.