54 Google

Introduction

Throughout the 2000s, there has been one search engine that revolutionized the internet: Google. It has become the world’s most popular search engine, and many people rely on the website to search for access to information daily. The popular search engine as of 2024, attracts 8.3 billion searches per day  and is the number one most visited website in the world (Cardillo, 2025). Google allows people to access a limitless amount of information in a fraction of a second. Topics that could’ve taken days to research 30 years ago can now be condensed down to minutes. Things like recipes, football scores, reviews, and articles are now just a click away.

Google’s Influence on Science, Technology, and Society

Google’s impact on our modern world cannot be understated and is an excellent demonstration of the interconnectedness of science, technology, and society (STS). As Vaidhyanathan (2011) explains, Google has fundamentally changed how individuals think, learn, and communicate, altering cultural patterns worldwide. This influence extends beyond simple convenience, fundamentally changing how societies store, access, and trust information.

Creation

Before Google was Google, it was originally a program called BackRub. The program was created by two Stanford University graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. BackRub was unique for its technology PageRank, it determined the relevance of the website by determining the number of pages and the importance of pages that linked back to the original website. In 1999, Google officially went out of beta, and in 2001, Google patented PageRank (Bellis, 2019). Since then Google has exploded into the behemoth of the company it is today. What makes Google so revolutionary and gives it its competitive edge over other search engines is its PageRank tech. This algorithm is what allows Google to find the most relevant webpages quickly, and in today’s society of information, it is crucial for people to find relevant and important data quickly. This is why other search engines such as Bing fail when stacked up against the monolith that is Google. They are not able to compete in this regard to bring useful and relevant information quickly to the user. Google has also kept expanding its search engine with the creation of other search engines such as Google Scholar which allows the user to sort through academic articles. It is also important to note how Google indexes information and brings what a user is specifically looking for at the top of the list. Google states on their website, “in a fraction of a second, Google’s search algorithms sort through hundreds of billions of webpages in our Search index to find the most relevant, useful results for what you’re looking for” (Google, 2019). People now no longer have to scour through other information to find the specific info. The most relevant information the user needs is all right there in a short concise manner, and this change has also dramatically changed how modern society functions.

The creation of Google’s PageRank system shows how scientific concepts like algorithmic ranking directly influence how technology integrates into daily life. This goes to show how information science principles can be commercialized to serve global needs (Brin & Page, 1998). Google’s approach created a template for future technology companies to follow, forever shaping the way that we acquire information. PageRank is what ultimately set Google apart from later competitors, ensuring its continued success.

Societal Impact

Google has been around for 20 years now and most millennials have grown up with Google always being a part of their lives. This has caused a huge shift in demographics between millennials and baby boomers. While the older generation grew up researching information the traditional way the new generation has grown up with the information being readily available. This changed how people in society think and function. Rothman writes in her Time magazine article how the search engine changes the way people organize information,

“The more we use services like Google, the more our brains organize the world in an index-based fashion. This also means people who make a living providing information are increasingly organizing their presentation to catch eyeballs looking for specific details in indexes. As a result, the way we interact with information is largely more disjointed than it was for our ancestors” (Rothman, 2018).

In the traditional way of research, people would have to sort through information on their own and would unintentionally learn other aspects of a topic while they were searching for something specific about the topic. Now with information so readily available, organized society no longer sees the big picture and has transitioned into only caring about the fine details. In today’s fast-paced society some may consider this a positive shift. People need to be able to find information quickly and concisely. However, some consider this shift to be negative as people are becoming dissociated with information and are no longer enveloping themselves into the topic. Everyone wants their information straight to the point: short, quick, and concise. People are no longer watching the full game anymore and are instead they are only watching the highlights. Carr in his academic article describes how Google inhibits the way he reads, “Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (Carr, 2008).

One could argue that this is causing people to be less intelligent, as gaps in information are not allowing people to fully understand a topic. Time is valuable, and people would much rather have something summarized in a few sentences than an in-depth analysis of the topic. While this does have some major drawbacks, it allows people to work more quickly and efficiently. Google has sped up the production of the world for better or for worse.

Search Engines and the Filter Bubble Effect

Google’s influence over cognitive behavior connects deeply with core STS ideas. As Pariser (2011) points out, search engines not only deliver information but also shape the information ecosystems users live within, influencing their perceptions of reality. The creation of “filter bubbles” is one example, where personalized search results reinforce existing beliefs rather than exposing users to diverse viewpoints. This, in turn, can create widespread biases amongst large populations. Those with vested interest can take advantage of this, using it to change the outcome of real world events. For example, if whenever a user searches for information about the current political candidates for an election, and one of those candidates is consistently portrayed in a negative way, this could influence the outcome of said election/ event. Basically, what people see changes how they think and act, but so does what people can’t see. Search engines get to use both sides of this blade as they have complete control over both what is promoted and what is suppressed. It is important that as consumer we maintain awareness of the “other side” of what we see online.

Economic Impact

Google has also affected the world in a tangible way. The search for keywords and trends in the search engine are valuable information for companies.  Choi and Varian describe in their academic article on how companies use Google Trends to predict the market, “Google Trends, which is a real‐time daily and weekly index of the volume of queries that users enter into Google. We have found that these query indices are often correlated with various economic indicators and may be helpful for short‐term economic prediction. For example, the volume of queries on automobile sales during the second week in June may be helpful in predicting the June auto sales report which is released several weeks later in July” (Choi and Varian, 2012).

Being able to see what people are interested in at any point in time has changed the way companies operate. This change can be seen in the way companies now advertise products. No longer are the days of marketing to demographics and hoping an ad reaches a potential consumer. Now companies can quickly see what people are searching for and what is popular in any given country. This has caused the economy to expand and has been contributing factors to globalization. Companies being able to see what is popular in a foreign country allows them to make better marketing strategies and creates opportunities to enter new markets. However, not everyone sees this tool as a positive one. Data privacy is one of the main hot topics, some say Google keeping track of their search data is an invasion of privacy, while others feel that it is just the cost of free information. So, what makes so many people flock to Google even though people are aware they are being tracked? Hendrix in his article puts it best, “Of course, the real value of Google to you and I is Google itself. We search the world’s knowledge for free and increasingly sync it with the physical world through Maps and even, soon, driverless cars. Freely flowing data break down barriers of language or power supercomputers in the palm of our hands. In the ongoing conversation between man and machine, we are the ones who have the last say” (Hendrix, 2016). With information becoming more available because of Google one can only imagine what the next steps are for the company and if the abundance of information will benefit or hurt humanity in the long run.

Conclusion

Google revolutionized the search engine game. It is hard to imagine daily life without the popular website. The Google search engine has dramatically changed the modern era because of its unique creation PageRank, its influence over the way society thinks, and its impact on the world’s economy. Google has brought people closer together and allowed people to educate themselves on a variety of topics. While there are some drawbacks the search engine has brought on society, overall it has benefited society.

In the broader context of STS, Google’s contributions highlight how technology is not just a tool, but an active agent shaping societal evolution. Understanding the implications of such technology allows societies to better navigate the challenges and opportunities it brings. Recognizing the societal shifts caused by platforms like Google is key to managing future innovations responsibly.

References

Bellis, M. (2019, January 18). Google: The Story Behind One of the Richest Companies in the World. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://www.thoughtco.com/who-invented-google-1991852.

Carr, N. (2008, December 9). Is Google Making Us Stupid? Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/

Choi, H., & Varian, H. (2012, June 27). Predicting the Present with Google Trends. Economic Record, 88(1), 2-9.  Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy.clemson.edu/doi/full/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2012.00809.x.

Google. (2019). How Search Works. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/.

Hendrix, M. (2016, June 27). Google’s Ever-Growing Impact on the Global Economy.  U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/blog/post/googles-ever-growing-impact-global-economy.

Rothman, L. (2018, September 4). How Google Changed the Whole Way We Think About Information. Time. Retrieved October 8, 2019, from https://time.com/5383389/google-history-search-information/.

Vaidhyanathan, S. (2011). The Googlization of everything : (and why we should worry) (1st ed.). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520948693

Brin, S., & Page, L. (1998). The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Stanford University.

Pariser, E. (2011). The filter bubble : what the Internet is hiding from you. Penguin Press.

Cardillo, A. (2025, April 23). How many Google searches are there per day? Exploding Topics. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/google-searches-per-day

images

“The Google search homepage, viewed in Google Chrome.” by Google Inc. is in the Public Domain

Braincraft. (2013) Is Google Killing Your Memory? https://youtu.be/qoFMGLTjUTM

Wikimedia Commons contributors. (n.d.). Googleplex – Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Googleplex_HQ_(cropped).jpg

AI Acknowledgment

I acknowledge the use of ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com) to assist in editing, revising, and updating this chapter. The prompts used included “Create an outline of possible edits/ changes, be specific, bullet point list,”  “Suggest areas in the original chapter that could be extended upon,” “Create proper APA citations for the following sources.” The output from these prompts was used to enhance clarity, suggest changes, and improve citation quality.