I would imagine that people use keyword searches in order to view as much as possible about any topic. Research requires a comprehensive review of available information and that might not be possible unless properly indexes the literature (print & online). The untrained formatting of an “advanced search” is exclusionary. Poor information indexing, similar to the political/beaurocratic construct of “information on a need to know basis”, is not only exclusionary it is prohibitive.

Don’t bash the keyword searcher. Better, inform the Google-like databases and their indexers they’ve lost the trust of those trying to use/promote online information.

It’s the “researcher’s” job to hunt down everything available and make the most of it. I think that’s why keyword searches “reign.”

Thank you.

“while I would agree that there are some problems with the report, the author’s themselves seem to feel this as well – with some caveats”

I guess so. But geez, the irony is thick here. For example:

“Our final message, one which information professionals have exactly the right skills set to address is the need for greater simplicity. We know that younger scholars especially have only a very limited knowledge of the many library-sponsored services that are on offer to them. The problem is one of both raising awareness of this expensive and valuable content and making the interfaces much more standard and easier to use. The cognitive load on any library user (or librarian) in trying to work through such complexity is at present immense. Librarians are guilty of complacency here.”

Seems to me this report does more to contribute to that cognitive load than to lighten it.

The superscript 6 has clearly come across from this report, and reads “Base: All UK adults (3,244). Question Z4, prompted responses, multi-coded”

The raw data for the chart seems to be from
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/medlitpub/medlitpubrss/adult_audit.csv – line 41582 onwards – although I can’t say it means much to me…

However, while I would agree that there are some problems with the report, the author’s themselves seem to feel this as well – with some caveats such as “The evidence base relevant to the issues raised in this report is incomplete and, in some cases, contradictory.”, also the marking of conclusions with confidence levels, and the admission at the start that what is really needed is a proper longitudinal study.

I guess this just goes to show that today’s ‘Google generation’ is just like the ‘permissive society’ of the 60s and 70s — most of us reading about it get the uneasy feeling that everyone else is doing it, and we’re the only ones not getting it …

Two wrongs may not make a right, but they at least give you a believable mean ;)

I’ve found similar problems in supposedly serious research papers about the age-related “digital divide” in Canada (basically doesn’t exist except as a function of economic power) and the wide assumptions about Facebook usage (outside of the US, a clear majority of Facebookers are over 25 and a good portion are over 35).

People seem very willing to take some kernel of an idea and take it much further than any data will support. When I see that, I always wonder what the underlying motivation might be…

But I lose trying beat him in playing memory-cards (offline, 60 cards, 20 years old style)! I lost memory-cards against my daughter more than once. They do it effortly while I try to make up all kinds of concepts to remember where those d*** machting pairs were.

I agree that there is no “Google Generation”. It´s just youth applied to current technology.