Millennials and the Curated Web (and Why I Chose Pinterest over Google)

When looking for a squash recipe for this Thanksgiving, I turned to Pinterest instead of Google.

"Why?" you might ask.

I turned to Pinterest because it is part of the curated web. When I search for squash recipes on Pinterest, I know there is a real person behind each "pin"; a real person who decided the idea, image, and content worth calling out and saving for later. That person selected an image that best represents an "idea worth saving" and often will annotate the pin with some useful information.

I chose Pinterest instead of Google because I find it is more trustworthy. Google gives me viable and untrustworthy results alike, gnarled and intertwined. I have to dig through the results to find the gold. Google's search results are generated based off a search algorithm—a fancy equation used to determine which of the billions of websites and web pages on the Internet match your search terms. This equation then orders the results based off the factors Google determines to be "relevant" to your search terms. Pinterest, conversely, uses the power of its users, real human beings who have done the heavy lifting by hand, serving you "the best of the web."

Google's display of search results is also much less... provocative. There are no images to entice me to click. If I switch to a Google image search, the results won't reliably give images that link to a recipe. Often, I find Google image search results link to nowhere, and it is difficult to discern which images are safe and trustworthy versus phishy. Pinterest curates the web and brings order to the chaos. The content in Pinterest goes through an additional level of filtering, by human hand.