Journal Article

Short-term Internet search using makes people rely on search engines when facing unknown issues

Zhang, Yifen, Dong, Guangheng, Wang, Yifan, Wu, Lingdan, Luo, Liang

2017

Overview

The Internet search engines, which have powerful search/sort functions and ease of use features, have become an indispensable tool for many individuals. The current study is to test whether the short-term Internet search training can make people more dependent on it. Thirty-one subjects out of forty subjects completed the search training study which included a pre-test, a six-day's training of Internet search, and a post-test. During the pre- and post- tests, subjects were asked to search online the answers to 40 unusual questions, remember the answers and recall them in the scanner. Un-learned questions were randomly presented at the recalling stage in order to elicited search impulse. Comparing to the pre-test, subjects in the post-test reported higher impulse to use search engines to answer un-learned questions. Consistently, subjects showed higher brain activations in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in the post-test than in the pre-test. In addition, there were significant positive correlations self-reported search impulse and brain responses in the frontal areas. The results suggest that a simple six-day's Internet search training can make people dependent on the search tools when facing unknown issues. People are easily dependent on the Internet search engines.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Activation / Adults / Advertisements / Age / Anterior cingulate cortex / Anxiety / Attention / Automatic control / Behavior / Biology and Life Sciences / Brain / Brain mapping / Brain research / Circuits / Cocaine / Cognitive ability / Colleges & universities / Computational neuroscience / Computer and Information Sciences / Computer applications / Correlation / Cortex (insular) / Decision making / Decision Making - physiology / Disorders / Distributed processing / Drug addiction / Engines / Entrepreneurs / Experiments / Eye (anatomy) / Female / Females / Functional magnetic resonance imaging / Humans / Hunger / Information Storage and Retrieval / Internet / Inventions / Inventories / Learning / Learning - physiology / Longitudinal studies / Male / Males / Medicine and Health Sciences / Memory / Mental disorders / Neostriatum / Nervous system / Neural networks / Neurodegenerative diseases / Neuroimaging / Neurology / Object recognition / Older people / Organs / Psychiatry / Psychology / Public health / Recall / Reinforcement / Research and Analysis Methods / Search Engine / Search engines / Short term / Speech / Studies / Territory / Training / Visual cortex / Visual perception / Young Adult