What We Lost When Search Stopped Making Us Think

Search quality has deteriorated over recent years as SEO-optimized content and AI-generated pages now dominate results, often prioritizing length and keyword density over accuracy, while genuine answers are buried deeper. Search engines have begun layering AI summaries directly into results to reduce clicks, but this allows users to accept confident paraphrases without verification—particularly problematic for those least equipped to spot errors. The broader concern is that relying on synthesized answers rather than engaging with multiple sources erodes the fundamental research skill of critical evaluation, which atrophies without regular practice.