People mistake the internet’s knowledge for their own
People mistake the internet’s knowledge for their own
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人们将互联网的知识误认为是自己的知识
DOI：
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发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Adrian F. Ward
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Adrian F. Ward
意义在当今的数字时代，人们不断地连接到网络信息。目前的研究提供了证据表明，通过互联网和谷歌等搜索引擎按需获取外部信息，模糊了内部知识和外部知识之间的界限，使人们相信他们可以--或者确实--记住他们刚刚找到的东西。使用谷歌回答常识问题，人为地夸大了人们对自己记忆和处理信息能力的信心，并导致对他们在没有互联网的情况下知道多少的错误乐观预测。当信息就在我们的指尖时，我们可能会错误地认为它来自我们的大脑。人们经常在互联网上搜索信息。8个实验(n=1,917)提供了证据，表明当人们在谷歌上搜索在线信息时，他们无法准确区分存储在自己记忆中的内部知识和存储在外部互联网上的知识。相对于那些只使用自己的知识的人来说，使用谷歌回答一般知识问题的人不仅对自己获取外部信息的能力更有信心，而且对自己的思考和记忆能力也更有信心。此外，那些使用谷歌的人预测，在没有互联网的帮助下，他们在未来会知道更多。这是一种错误的信念，既表明了对先前知识的错误归因，也突显了这种错误归因的一个实际重要后果：当互联网不再可用时，他们过于自信。尽管人类长期以来一直依赖外部知识，但在线搜索的特点是内部思维和外部信息之间的快速而无缝的接口，可能会促进在线知识对自我的错误归因。在线搜索往往比内存搜索更快，使人们无法充分认识到自己知识的局限性。互联网无缝地传递信息，与内部认知过程相吻合，并提供可能引起人们注意其贡献的最小物理线索。结果，人们可能看不到自己的知识在哪里结束，互联网的知识从哪里开始。与谷歌一起思考可能会导致人们将互联网的知识误认为是他们自己的。
Significance In the current digital age, people are constantly connected to online information. The present research provides evidence that on-demand access to external information, enabled by the internet and search engines like Google, blurs the boundaries between internal and external knowledge, causing people to believe they could—or did—remember what they actually just found. Using Google to answer general knowledge questions artificially inflates peoples’ confidence in their own ability to remember and process information and leads to erroneously optimistic predictions regarding how much they will know without the internet. When information is at our fingertips, we may mistakenly believe that it originated from inside our heads. People frequently search the internet for information. Eight experiments (n = 1,917) provide evidence that when people “Google” for online information, they fail to accurately distinguish between knowledge stored internally—in their own memories—and knowledge stored externally—on the internet. Relative to those using only their own knowledge, people who use Google to answer general knowledge questions are not only more confident in their ability to access external information; they are also more confident in their own ability to think and remember. Moreover, those who use Google predict that they will know more in the future without the help of the internet, an erroneous belief that both indicates misattribution of prior knowledge and highlights a practically important consequence of this misattribution: overconfidence when the internet is no longer available. Although humans have long relied on external knowledge, the misattribution of online knowledge to the self may be facilitated by the swift and seamless interface between internal thought and external information that characterizes online search. Online search is often faster than internal memory search, preventing people from fully recognizing the limitations of their own knowledge. The internet delivers information seamlessly, dovetailing with internal cognitive processes and offering minimal physical cues that might draw attention to its contributions. As a result, people may lose sight of where their own knowledge ends and where the internet’s knowledge begins. Thinking with Google may cause people to mistake the internet’s knowledge for their own.