At a time when every last penny counts and we absolutely have to know if spending that extra dollar is actually worth it, college students generally look to reviews for help.

We check the reviews to see if a movie is worth attending, check if we should buy a Sony camera or a Canon, research if Florida is worth visiting this year.

Needless to say, for some, reviews are our value lifeline.

However, I often find myself wondering if everyone is using reviews to actually find better deals or just using them as an opinion pool where they can predetermine or secure their stance on whether or not something is good.

It seems some people enjoy reading reviews that gel with their personal opinions and attack reviews that don’t.

This, in essence, defeats the purpose of reviews, as one of the great qualities about them is one can get more than one view point and then make their own personal deliberations on the subject.

Others tend to pick one go-to place for their reviews and just adopt their viewpoints as their own.

They just go to Entertainment Weekly or Rotten Tomatoes for their movie reviews.

Then, take a stance from those reviews as though they have seen the movies already.

The problem with this is the closed-mindedness that this presents.

Reviews are written in such a way that they present opinion as fact.

It is up to the readers to keep in mind that reviews are essentially just opinions and that there is more than just that one opinion out there.

Reviews are also susceptible to more subtle influences.

Maybe the author was having a bad week and he docks down an album a bit more than he would have had he been in a better mood.

It’s impossible for readers to tell and is just another reason for them to seek more than one review.

Another problem that I have with the way some read reviews today is the point system.

Instead of reading the reviews, some just dash to the numbers that the author decides to assign to what he’s reviewing.

This ruins the point of reviews entirely, as the reader can no longer make a decision as to whether the author’s points were valid, choosing to bank off of numbers that come from a system that means nothing.

I hate (hate!) numerical review systems!

Still, if used properly, reviews are powerful tools for college students and consumers, in general, that gets consumers informed about products and events.

However, some of my favorite CD’s, movies and video games have gotten horrible scores from reviewers.

In the end, don’t just do or not do something just because of the writing on the wall.

You may just miss out on something great.