Google May Cause People to Think They're Smarter Than They Are

You may not be as smart as you think you are. A new study reveals that Google may be making people feel smarter than they actually are, which could have some serious repercussions for decision-making.

"The Internet is such a powerful environment, where you can enter any question, and you basically have access to the world's knowledge at your fingertips," said Matthew Fisher, the lead researcher, in a news release. "It becomes easier to confuse your own knowledge with this external source. When people are truly on their own, they may be wildly inaccurate about how much they know and how dependent they are on the Internet."

In order to see exactly how much people rely on the Internet, the researchers conducted a series of experiments. A range of 152 to 302 volunteers were recruited online for nine experiments. In one experiment, the Internet group used online searches to research four questions and provided a website link with the best answer. The control group was given the exact text from the most common website used by the Internet group to answer the questions. Both of the groups then rated their ability to answer other questions on topics unrelated to the Internet searchers, although they didn't have to answer those questions.

It turns out that the Internet group reported an inflated sense of personal knowledge after Internet searchers, even when its members could not find complete answers to very difficult questions, or when they found no answers at all because of Google filters that were used.

"If you don't know the answer to a question, it's very apparent to you that you don't know, and it takes time and effort to find the answer," said Fisher. "With the Internet, the lines become blurry between what you know and what you think you know."

The growing use of smartphones may actually exacerbate this problem since the Internet is always within reach. In addition, the effects may be more pronounced when children who are immersed in the Internet from an early age grow up to be adults.

So what's the problem? An inflated sense of personal knowledge could be dangerous in the political realm or in other areas involving high-stakes decisions.

"The Internet is an enormous benefit in countless ways, but there may be some tradeoffs that aren't immediately obvious and this may be one of them," said Fisher. "Accurate personal knowledge is difficult to achieve, and the Internet may be making that task even ahrder."

The findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

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