How Google affects self-esteem
To test this hypothesis, Ward conducted a simple experiment with several steps:
Participants were first asked to answer 10 questions using either their memory or an online search, and then took a cognitive self-assessment test, which measures their own mental abilities. Those who used Google answered more questions correctly, rated themselves highly, and said they would do well on another test that did not involve using a web search.
In the next round, both groups were given the correct answers to assess their own performance. After that, the Google users still showed great confidence that they could do the test. When they took the test on their own, they realized that Google had given them false confidence. In the second round, their scores were just as low as the others.
In another test, people who relied on memory were told they had answered eight out of ten questions correctly, regardless of their actual scores. Those who believed this increased their confidence to about brazil number data the same level as those who used Google.
Another test showed that search users' confidence evaporates when asked to write down all the answers from memory.
Ward also tested how the speed of a Google search affected the illusion that the process was equivalent to recall. When the search was slowed down, users' confidence was lower, but not completely gone.
Similarly, when people needed to answer very complex questions, using a web search did not give them confidence, but it did increase their expectations of future results.
Finally, the researchers compared Google users with people who were presented with a Wikipedia page containing the answer. Here, they found that Wikipedia users remembered where they got the information from, while Google users mistakenly believed they already knew the fact.
So who remembers everything after all?
While some of the findings seem questionable, the general trend is quite consistent. Each subsequent experiment typically involved groups that repeated the procedure of the first experiment. Ward combined all of this data for an internal meta-analysis that included more than 1,900 subjects.
“Virtually all Google users tended to think they had excellent memories. What does that mean? If Google answers a question before users have time to finish searching in their own memory, people may never realize that their internal search yielded no results,” Ward notes.
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