Yale: The Internet brings the world to our fingertips, but it turns out
that getting information online also has a startling effect on our
brains: We feel a lot smarter than we really are, according to a
Yale-led study published March 30 in the Journal of Experimental
Psychology. In nine different experiments with more than 1,000
participants, Yale psychologists found that if subjects received
information through Internet searches, they rated their knowledge base
as much greater than those who obtained the information through other
methods.
“This was a very robust effect, replicated time and time
again,” said Matthew Fisher, a fourth-year Ph.D. student and the lead
author of the study. “People who search for information tend to conflate
accessible knowledge with their own personal knowledge.”
For
instance, in one experiment people searched online for a website that
answers the question, “How does a zipper work?” The control group
received the same answer that they would have found online, but without
searching for it themselves. When later asked how well they understood
completely unrelated domains of knowledge, those who searched the
Internet rated their knowledge substantially greater than those who were
only provided text. Prior to the experiment, no such difference
existed.
The effect was so strong that even when a full answer to a
question was not provided to Internet searchers, they still had an
inflated sense of their own knowledge.
“The cognitive effects of
‘being in search mode’ on the Internet may be so powerful that people
still feel smarter even when their online searches reveal nothing,” said
Frank Keil, the Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of
Psychology and Linguistics and senior author of the paper.
Keil
recalls being cut off from Internet access during a hurricane, and says,
“I felt myself becoming stupider by the hour.” For the younger
generation, the effect may be even more pronounced. “The cell phone is
almost like the appendage of their brain,” he said. “They don’t even
realize it’s not real until they become unplugged.”
The research
was made possible by a grant from the Fuller Theological Seminary/Thrive
Center for Human Development in concert with the John Templeton
Foundation.