Individual knowledge (i.e., personal memory) and communal knowledge (i.e., external online information) are becoming increasingly confused as human cognition becomes increasingly entangled with the internet, a knowledge-sharing system that can be accessed at any time and from anywhere. In other words, people may wrongly feel that knowledge discovered on the internet came from their own recollection.


People who used Google to answer questions were more confident in their knowledge and recall than those who did not use Google, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. People who utilized Google, on the other hand, were no more likely to be accurate than those who did not.


The world's most significant scientific advances have occurred because individuals draw on and utilise information from other sources, rather than because particular specialists know everything there is to know about a subject. According to research author Adrian F. Ward, "the regularity and ease with which people assimilate others' information into their own cognitive processes also demonstrates that individual human cognition is not actually individual at all." "Thinking, remembering, and knowing are frequently collaborative processes, resulting from the interaction of internal and external cognitive resources."


"Google is purposely built to be less like an external tool and more like 'the third side of your brain,' as cofounder Sergey Brin put it—a knowledge interface so smooth that searching feels like thinking."


Experiment 1 had participants complete ten general knowledge questions on their own or with the help of Google. They next completed a cognitive self-esteem questionnaire to assess their perceptions of their cognitive talents. When compared to those who answered questions on their own, individuals who used Google answered more questions correctly, had greater confidence in their capacity to acquire external knowledge, and had more confidence in their memory. This shows that participants are relying on their own memories to recall the information they acquired on Google.


The sole difference between Experiment 2 and Experiment 1 was that only half of the individuals performed the cognitive self-esteem test. After that, all participants were asked to predict how many questions they would get right on a second knowledge exam in which no Googling was permitted. The results suggest that individuals who took the first knowledge exam using Google expected they would know more on the second test than those who took the first knowledge test on their own. Those who used Google were more confidence in their cognitive skills than those who did not use Google, as in Experiment 1.


Experiment 3 aimed to build on the findings of Experiment 2. The approach was the same in general, except that participants had to complete two knowledge exams and were given the correct answers. Then they projected how well they would perform on the second exam, which would be conducted without the help of Google. Finally, they took the second examination. The results revealed that individuals who completed the first exam using Google expected that they would score higher on the second test, even if they did not have access to Google. Importantly, the data demonstrate that these individuals did not outperform those who did not utilize Google at all on the second exam. “ Both of these findings show that people take personal credit for the information found in online search results Ward highlighted that "failing to recognize the internet's benefits might lead to overconfidence."


Participants in Experiment 4 were randomly allocated to one of three conditions: Google, no Google, or no Google with bogus feedback. Participants in the third condition were informed they had properly answered 8 out of 10 questions. They were then asked if they agreed with this score, dividing the participants into those who did and did not trust the bogus score. The Google condition participants were equally as secure in their memories as those who trusted the fake input. Those who did not trust the misleading input, on the other hand, were just as confident in their cognitive ability as those who did.


Experiment 5 prompted participants to write down their replies before consulting Google. In comparison to those who merely Googled their answers like in the previous tests, individuals who wrote down their answers before Googling showed lesser confidence in their cognitive ability and expected they would know less on a future knowledge exam. "These findings show that the standard online search procedure obscures the relative contributions of internal vs external information; when personal knowledge constraints are highlighted, people no longer assume they know what the internet knows."


In Experiment 6, the Google search results were delayed, providing participants the opportunity to look up the solution in their own memory while Google searched. People cannot properly search their personal memories for the solution because of the speed with which Google operates. In this experiment, the third condition was altered to a Google delayed search condition, where responses took 25 seconds to show. The results demonstrate that individuals who utilized sluggish Google had the same level of confidence in their expertise as those who did not. Furthermore, as compared to those who did not use Google, those who used sluggish Google did not anticipate they would score better on a future knowledge text.


Experiment 7 built on the prior studies by allocating individuals to answer simple, medium, or difficult questions with or without the use of Google. Those who used Google felt they were smarter, had better memory, and anticipated they would know more in the future than those who did not use Google, according to data from prior tests. For simple inquiries, Google had little impact on these decisions. People who used Google for tough questions anticipated to know more in the future on comparable difficult issues than those who did not use Google.


In Experiment 8, individuals were asked to respond to 50 general knowledge questions using their own knowledge, Google, or Wikipedia. Those who were in Wikipedia condition were provided with a direct link to the appropriate page. "While getting answers from Google might feel like 'simply knowing,' seeing and sorting through additional contextual information while searching for answers on Wikipedia can serve as a stark reminder that this knowledge came from somewhere else."


They were then asked if they solved the question using their own knowledge or the Internet, and were given 70 questions (50 previously seen, 20 new questions). Participants who used Google were less accurate at identifying the source of information than those who used Wikipedia, according to the findings. Furthermore, individuals who Googled were more likely than those in the Wikipedia condition to link online material to their own recollection. "These findings show that seamless access to internet information not only blurs the lines between internal and external knowledge—it may perhaps obliterate them totally, leading people to feel that information accessed online was discovered within their own brains," Ward said.


Overall, the findings of these research imply that reliance on Google for knowledge may blur the borders between what we already know and what we can quickly get online.