We've all Googled a question and taken the top link as fact, without digging any more into the credibility of the source.
Relying too heavily on the search engine, though, can feed a common mental trap known as availability bias, says Cynthia Borja, a project leader at The Decision Lab, a think tank where researchers study how people make decisions.
Availability bias is the tendency to think easily accessible information is the most factual information.
But Google's algorithm sometimes shows users unreliable or even misleading news sources.
"If you are not applying a really critical lens and making sure that you're checking more than one source, all you're doing is getting information that is biased from one perspective," Borja says.
Persons:
Cynthia Borja, Borja