A Sociological Eye

    Ah, yes, surely this AI Overview summation of the Internet’s information about US presidents who attended UW-Madison must be correct! As supernatural beings, former presidents often rise from the dead to add a university degree to their resumes, you know. . . Twenty years ago, college instructors would sternly warn students not to cite, or even look at, Wikipedia. Since entries were written by ordinary human volunteers, these instructors admonished that they would likely contain both foolish errors and misinformation.    Today we can see that Wikipedia is one of the most trustworthy sources of information on the internet, precisely because it is written, and more importantly constantly reviewed, moderated, and revised by actual people—people invested in the pursuit of truth and knowledge.    Along comes Google, diligently pursuing profits via “ enshittification ” (Not my term but one you should know!). Google knows users are unhappy at how their search result quality has gone down,

  I have been busily grading term papers, and in my Sociology of the Body class, a number of my students have chosen to write their final papers on supplements that make extraordinary health claims. When they do this, I always search the student product choices out online and scroll down to find the ingredients. Usually these are obfuscated by made-up names--"adaptogenic beta-pyridoxine" is just a heavily embroidered way to write "vitamin B6," or are pure nonsense--"non-transdermal X39" makes as much sense as "powdered unicorn horn."   Scientific analysis of herbal supplements hawked online show that many contain little or none of the claimed ingredients in any case. Usually they just contain fillers like microcellulose (basically sawdust), but sometimes they contain ingredients like caffeine (to make the purchaser feel the pills give them a lift), or even ground-up expired prescription drugs (like ED medications added to pills that are supposed