Are we more knowledgeable with the internet?

The effect of any given thing always beyond what is intended. The creation of textiles like silk and cotton around 7,000 years ago wasn’t intended to yield spandex and fashion trends. The manufacture of string wasn’t intended to result in the yo-yo. The invention of the motor car wasn’t intended to damage our air quality and climate. The development of the cathode ray tube wasn’t intended to result in people without talent or thought being manipulated by cynical producers and watched by millions of viewers (aka “reality television”); just as competitive sports weren’t intended to be turned into the “circuses” that Roman rulers used to distract the populace. There are endless examples of unintended consequences, it is the nature of life, and according to a new study the internet is just another prime example.

People with access to the internet were five per cent more likely to say that they did not know the answer to the question.

In the new study researchers asked subjects a series of general knowledge questions like, “What is the capital of France?” (and no, the answer is not ‘the Euro’). The subjects indicated if they knew the answer or not. In 50 per cent of the cases the subjects were give access to the internet and had to look up the answer if they did not know the answer. The other 50 per cent of subjects were not given access to the internet.

The results showed that people with access to the internet were five per cent more likely to say that they did not know the answer to the question and also reported generally feeling that they knew less than people without access to the internet.

The researchers point out that the internet gives perpetual access to a huge mine of information and this probably makes people less likely to rely on their own knowledge. It might be that having access to the internet makes people less likely to say they know an answer which can be easily shown to be incorrect. It could also be that the process of searching for and finding an answer is intrinsically rewarding.

Whatever the motivation the outcome is that the internet may be making people less likely to rely on their own knowledge base. As unintended outcomes go, this is a pretty big one. What is the future of human thought if we see ourselves as users of an unverified pool of knowledge rather than masters and shapers of that knowledge? Novelists can have a field day with that one; as George Orwell already did.