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.

Browsing the Internet for information gives people a “widely inaccurate” view of their own intelligence and could lead to over-confidence when making decisions, experts warn. In a series of experiments, participants who had searched for information on the Internet believed they were far more knowledgeable about a subject than those who had learned by normal routes, such as reading a book or talking to a tutor. Internet users also believed their brains were sharper.

“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 lead researcher Matthew Fisher, a doctoral candidate in psychology at Yale University.

“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.”

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 that gave the answer to the question “how does a zip work” while a control group was given a printout of the same information.

When the 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. “With the Internet, the lines become blurry between what you know and what you think you know,” said 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.

耶鲁大学的心理学家发现，谷歌或雅虎等搜索引擎容易让人对自己的聪明程度自视过高，因为他们只要轻触指尖，就能获取全世界的知识。

专家提醒，浏览互联网信息会让人对自己的智力有一种“非常不准确”的认识，还会让人在做决定时过于自信。

在一系列实验中，用互联网搜索信息的参与者认为，比起用查阅书籍或请教导师等常见学习方法搜索信息的参与者，他们对主题信息的了解更加全面。他们同时还认为，自己的思维更加敏锐。

首席研究员、耶鲁大学心理学博士生马修•费舍尔表示：“互联网是一个如此强大的环境，在这里你可以查找任何问题，几乎可以浏览全世界的信息。

“有了这样强大的外部信息来源，人们很容易对自己的知识能力进行误读。当他们只能依靠自己的力量时，对于自己知识的匮乏程度和对互联网的依赖程度，他们的认识也非常不准确。”

为了探究互联网搜索对心理的影响，研究人员对1000多名学生进行了一系列实验。在一项测试中，研究人员给互联网组提供了一个链接，内容是关于“拉链工作原理”的答案，另一组拿到的则是打印版本的内容。

随后，两组人分别被问及一个不相关的问题“为什么多云的夜晚更暖和？”在不允许搜索正确答案的情况下，互联网组依然认为他们的知识更渊博。费舍尔说：“互联网的使用模糊了‘自己知道的事’与‘自以为知道的事’之间的界线。”

研究人员还认为，个体知识的膨胀感在政治领域或涉及高风险决策时可能会十分危险。

Words to Learn 相关词汇

    【不准确的】bù zhǔnquè de inaccurate incorrect or untrue

    【模糊的】móhú de blurry blurred, indistinct