Thanks to the Internet, we have the collective knowledge of the entire human race at our fingertips, and search engines like Bing and Google exist solely to help you search through that information. However, new findings by psychologists at Yale University suggest that accessing this knowledge tends to make people feel smarter than they actually are by giving them a “widely inaccurate” view of their own intelligence. 

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 that 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 fourth-year doctoral candidate in psychology at Yale University.