Using Google might spark your creativity, or it might stifle it, but this depends on the circumstances, according to a new study, according to New Atlas. We know the internet isn’t going anywhere, but we may need to hold on to our humanity to use technology more effectively.

To effectively adapt to changing situations and environments, humans need to be able to come up with new ideas and creative solutions to problems. This kind of creativity has been associated with the “fixation effect,” where people get stuck in a certain way of thinking (i.e., fixated) because they’ve been exposed to specific examples or ideas.

New research by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has examined the impact of internet access on creativity. Specifically, whether being able to “Google” something helps or hinders a person’s ability to come up with new ideas.

“Our hope is that by studying how human thought interacts with technology use, we can figure out ways to glean the best of the internet while minimizing the negative consequences,” said Mark Patterson, PhD, an assistant teaching professor in CMU’s Department of Social and Decision Sciences (SDS), director of the Quantitative Social Science Scholars (QSSS) Program, and the study’s co-author. “For some of these bigger, tough, societal-level challenges that we’re facing, I think taking advantage of real diversity and a wide range of solutions requires groups to come up with a lot of different solution strategies.”

The researchers explored how internet access, specifically the use of Google, affected individual and group creativity. They wanted to understand whether having access to online information helped or hindered people’s ability to come up with creative ideas, especially when working collectively. Two hundred and forty-four university students aged between 18 and 22 were recruited and randomly assigned to conditions with or without access to Google. Participants were asked to generate novel uses for either a shield or an umbrella, and had three minutes to list as many uses as possible. The researchers evaluated the number and quality of responses per person (individual creativity), as well as combined responses from multiple individuals as if they were a brainstorming group.

In terms of individual performance, when Google provided a lot of suggestions, as was the case with “umbrella,” participants with internet access generated more ideas. When Google had fewer suggestions, as with “shield,” there was no advantage to having internet access. In groups, those without Google access consistently produced more diverse and unique ideas, especially as group size increased. Groups with Google access often converged on the same common ideas, resulting in redundancy and reduced diversity. Non-Google groups contributed more to “singleton” ideas, that is, ideas that originated from only one person, which boosted collective creativity.

Source: azertag.az