Internet's Fooling Us Into Thinking We're Smarter Than We Are, Finds Study

Do you think you're smarter than those around you? Listen up, we're not passing judgments. But a new research claims that the internet is making us feel smarter than we really are.

To be fair, the internet is designed to be a repository of all human knowledge accessible to all, contributing little by little to our individual intellectual abilities.

Adrian Ward, a marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin wanted to understand the intersection of the internet and human memory. With all information available with a single click on Google, our memory no longer feels the need to retain every piece of information.

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Do you heavily rely on Google?

In August, Ward published a study which highlighted how people who heavily rely on Google for information may get the right answers but also may have a false understanding of how strong their own memory is.

Ward believes that memory is reshaped with each feat in technology, especially digital devices. The line between the mind and the internet may be blurred further, Ward believes - while calling it the "Intermind."

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To ascertain one's self-delusions about memory, Ward conducted a series of eight experiments to test how people perceived their own knowledge while completing short quizzes about general knowledge. A few of these participants had access to Google while others did not.

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Ward found that those with Google access erroneously believed that their mind would remember this information in future quizzes without depending on the internet.

An earlier research in 2011 referred to this as the "Google effect," wherein people are less likely to remember and retain information if they know it's readily available on the internet.

Reuters

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What do you think - do you falsely think you have absorbed a piece of information from Google while it may have passed as soon as it was retrieved? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of science and tech, keep reading Indiatimes.com.

Citation

Ingram, D. (2021, December 9). The internet is tricking our brains. NBC News.

Sparrow, B., Liu, J., & Wegner, D. M. (2011). Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips. Science, 333(6043), 776¨C778.

Ward, A. F. (2021, October 26). People mistake the internet¡¯s knowledge for their own. PNAS.