Short attention spans while surfing the web

excerpt taken from http://www.reputationdefenderblog.com/2008/06/16/the-short-attention-span-of-web-searchers-most-never-read-past-3-results/ shows that most people only scan lightly through most of the information presented to them.

The short attention span of web searchers: most never read past 3 results
June 16th, 2008 Identity Management, Online Reputation Management Reputation Whiz
* Google users want instant gratification when they’re searching. How instant? The top 3 Google results get 79% of all clicks. The remaining 7 results share just 21% of the clicks. In other words, more than three quarters of Google users never click past the first three results.
(Source: Cornell University study - see full size Google results chart here.
The data are similar for AOL’s web search: the top 3 results in an AOL search get 63% of the clicks. Of course, you could explain this because search engines tend to deliver relevant results in the first three hits. But most websurfers wouldn’t know: Most websurfers don’t look past the first three results at all. Scientific eye-tracking studies used cameras to track exactly where volunteers were looking when they were searching for various topics. The vast majority of people looked only at the first three Google results, the power hits. They never looked at the rest of the results to know whether they were better.
The diagram above is a “heat map” of a Google search. Hotter colors represent areas where people spent more time looking; gray areas are places where nobody ever glanced. The “x” marks on the picture represent areas where people clicked.
The short attention span theory continues by comparing different pages. Almost 90% of clicks come from the first page of Google results, up from 80% a few years ago. (Source: Enquisite) And, 76% of French websurfers look only at the first page of Google results. (Source: French study).
There are many possible explanations for this sudden short attention span. The New York Times blames it on intrusive technology, like constant email, text, and instant messaging interruptions when trying to work. Web surfers make lots of fast queries and just go with whatever comes up first. Very few people examine their search results in close detail, and very few will ever find results buried beyond the first page.