Searching For Data On The Internet Makes Us Believe That We Are Smarter, According To A Study
Internet search engines and encyclopedic web pages are a powerful tool when it comes to finding all kinds of information in a matter of seconds. However, our relationship with the cyber world is not just one-way. We too are affected by our use of the Internet, even if we do not realize it. For example, a recent article published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests that The simple fact of using the Internet to access information could be making us consider ourselves smarter than we really are
Researchers Matthew Fisher, Mariel K. Goddu and Frank C. Keil of Yale University believe that simply perceiving that we are able to access massive amounts of information quickly through electronic devices makes us more likely to overestimate our level of knowledge This hypothesis is supported by one of his latest investigations, in which he experimented with people who actively searched for data on the Internet and others who did not have that possibility.
The different variants of the experiment show how the simple fact of having carried out an Internet search is enough for participants to significantly overestimate their ability to retain and use information without consulting the Internet.
Fisher and his team’s research began with a first phase in which a series of questions were asked of the volunteers. However, some of these people were not allowed to use any external sources of information, while the rest had to search for an answer on the Internet for each question. Once this phase had passed, the volunteers were asked new questions related to topics that had nothing to do with what they had been asked previously. Participants had to rate on a scale from 1 to 7 the degree to which they believed they were capable of giving explanations to questions related to the topic of each of the questions posed.
The results extracted from the statistical analysis showed how people who had consulted the Internet were significantly more optimistic in rating themselves on ability to offer explanations about the topics covered in the questions.
However, to complement the results obtained, the researchers decided to create a more complete variant of the experiment in which, before having the possibility of searching for an answer to a question with or without the help of the Internet, all participants had to rate their perception of their own level of knowledge with a scale between 1 and 7, in the same way they would have to do it in the last phase of the experiment.
In this way it was possible to verify that In the two experimental groups (people who would use the Internet and those who would not) there were no significant differences in the way they perceived their own level of knowledge It was after the phase in which some people searched for information on the Internet that these differences arose.
More experiments on this
In another version of the experiment, the researchers focused on making sure that members of the two groups saw exactly the same information, to see how the simple act of actively searching for data on the Internet influenced people, regardless of what they were doing. that is found.
To do this, some people were given instructions on how to go look for specific information about the question on a specific website where that data was found, while the rest of the people were directly shown those documents with the answer, without giving them the possibility of searching for it themselves. People with the possibility of searching for information on the Internet continued to show a clear propensity to believe themselves to be somewhat smarter, judging by their way of rating themselves on scales from 1 to 7.
The test to which the volunteers were subjected had some more variants to control in the best possible way the variables that could contaminate the results. For example, in successive experiments different search engines were used. And, in an alternative version of the test, scoring one’s own level of knowledge was replaced by a final phase in which volunteers had to look at several brain scan images and decide Which of those photographs looked most like your own brain? In line with the rest of the results, people who had been searching on the Internet tended to choose the images in which the brain showed more activation.
What made the participants overvalue their knowledge was not the fact of having found an answer to a question on the Internet, but the simple fact of being able to search for information on the Internet. The researchers realized this by seeing how those people who had to find an answer that was impossible to find on the Internet tended to overestimate themselves as much as those who did find what they were looking for.
A price to pay
These results seem to speak about a mephistophelian contract between us and the Internet. Search engines offer us the virtual possibility of knowing everything if we have an electronic device nearby, but, at the same time, this could make us more blind to our limitations in finding answers on our own, without the help of anything or anyone. In a way, this refers us to the Dunning-Kruger Effect. We may have been blessed with the ability to believe that things are simpler than they really are, and this may even be very useful in the vast majority of cases. However, this could become a problem when we have a resource as powerful as the Internet at hand.
It is advisable not to get confused and end up sacrificing on the altar of god google our ability to judge our abilities. After all, the network of networks is extensive enough that it is difficult to find the point where our neurons end and fiber optic cables begin.
