LF: Google 'makes people think they are smarter than they are'

Title: Google 'makes people think they are smarter than they are'
Source: The Telegraph
URL Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci ... are-smarter-than-they-are.html
Published: Mar 31, 2015
Author: Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
Post Date: 2015-04-01 10:41:53 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 2953
Comments: 14

Search engines like Google or Yahoo make people think they are smarter than they actually are because they have the world's knowledge at their fingertips, psychologists at Yale University have found.

_{Online searches made students feel smarter (Alamy)}

More than 1,000 students took part in a range of experiments aimed at gauging the psycholgocal impact of searching on the internet.

In one test, the internet group were given a website link which gave the answer to the question ‘how does a zip work’ while a control group were given a print-out of the same information.

When they two groups were quizzed later on an unrelated question – ‘why are cloudy nights warmer?’ the group who had searched online believed they were more knowledgeable even though they were not allowed to look up the correct answer.

Psychology professor Frank Keil, of Yale University, said the study showed that the cognitive effects of "being in search mode" on the internet were so powerful that people still feel smarter even when their online searches did not help.

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And the growing use of smartphones may exacerbate the problem because an internet search is always within reach.

“With the internet, the lines become blurry between what you know and what you think you know,” added Mr Fisher.

The researchers also believe that an inflated sense of personal knowledge also could be dangerous in the political realm or other areas involving high-stakes decisions.

"In cases where decisions have big consequences, it could be important for people to distinguish their own knowledge and not assume they know something when they actually don't," Mr Fisher added.

"The Internet is an enormous benefit in countless ways, but there may be some trade-offs that aren't immediately obvious and this may be one of them.

“Accurate personal knowledge is difficult to achieve, and the Internet may be making that task even harder."

The study was published by the American Psychological Association. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Consider the things that for the most part exist no longer; or are on their way to extinction thanks to internet search engines.

I am thinking if getting an old set of encyclos - loved pulling a book at random and flipping a page at random and falling upon a subject I would have never thought to read up on otherwise. I love internet searches but they are always targeted - so it narrows my focus. Also makes for great bathroom meditation reading.

Anyway, even 'back in the da day' encyclopedias were like 'cliff notes' for novels. Gives you a 'Reader's Digest' version. Nothing is like reading actual books. As the article states, if you read books you will retain that knowledge. I have seen this at various gatherings. You can tell who read the books when in school, and who skimmed the cliff notes.

That is why the Left banks it advancement on the dumbing down of our schools. If someone believes the internet has all the right answers, then they will believe the steaming pile of skither handed out by the Left.

In the above there is a word you won't find on the internet. You would only know it if your mother who spoke Gaelic shoveled it every morning before going to school:) So there's an example of learning something not on the internet...oops until now:)