The actress Claire Danes appeared recently on “Late Night with David Letterman” to promote her latest film. When asked how many movies she had made in her prolific young career, Danes was caught up short.

“I have to Wikipedia myself,” she said.

Her response confirms what many people already know: That Wikipedia, like Google, is no longer a mere entity ”“ it has made the leap from noun to verb. Wikipedia has come to signify both the online encyclopedia and the act of using it. These days, it’s also the default mode for much of the information we seek.

I’d be hard-pressed to calculate how often I use the site; suffice it to say, a lot. On recent visits, I wanted to find the contents of beer nuts; singer Lionel Richie’s age; and the timing of mud season. All of these seemed like perfect candidates for Wikipedia ”“ namely, questions in search of simple answers. I wanted a few factoids, a quick fix, not research of a deep or complicated sort.

And there’s the rub. Wikipedia is like digital junk food ”“ fast, convenient, and habit-forming, if a bit light on the nutritional front. In both cases, we consume the product reflexively, ignoring the utter strangeness of the accompanying fine print. In the case of junk food, the labels make sense mostly to chemists. In the case of Wikipedia, disclaimers appear throughout the site, while users barrel ahead undeterred.

Take the entry on Lionel Richie, which includes a warning about the presence of “weasel words,” or terms that suggest bias. “Such statements should be clarified or removed,” the listing reads, which only begs the question.

Or consider the page on mud season, with its cautionary note that the article is “an orphan,” without links to other listings. “Please introduce links to this page from related articles,” the entry reads.

When was the last time an encyclopedia asked you, the reader, to supply improvements?

Nor do the prefatory notes on the site offer much comfort. Amid its self-description, Wikipedia provides a list of disclaimers that borders on parody. “Wikipedia is not a crystal ball,” it says. “Wikipedia is not censored ”¦ is not a battleground ”¦ is not a democracy.”

No wonder that Middlebury College, among other colleges, restricts use of the online encyclopedia for student research and papers. Nobody doubts that Wikipedia contains useful information, or that it’s a fine starting point. But the site’s policy, allowing anyone with Internet access to edit entries, will always raise questions of accuracy and credibility. Colleges are hardly alone in their concern.

For those of us who tend to overindulge our Wikipedia reflex, it may be time to take stock. Whether Lionel Richie is, in fact, 60 years old matters little in the big picture. But surely there are millions of searches that are far more consequential. Case in point: A friend recently learned that her daughter, a young surgeon, considers Wikipedia her go-to source for medical information.

Horrified, my friend exclaimed, “We didn’t pay $200,000 for medical school so you could do research on Wikipedia.”

Which gives new meaning to the proverb, “Physician, heal thyself.”

— Joan Silverman’s work has appeared in numerous publications including The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, and Houston Chronicle. She lives in Kennebunk.