People frequently search the internet for information. Eight experiments (n = 1,917) provide evidence that when people “Google” for online information, they fail to accurately distinguish between knowledge stored internally—in their own memories—and knowledge stored externally—on the internet. Relative to those using only their own knowledge, people who use Google to answer general knowledge questions are not only more confident in their ability to access external information; they are also more confident in their own ability to think and remember. Moreover, those who use Google predict that they will know more in the future without the help of the internet, an erroneous belief that both indicates misattribution of prior knowledge and highlights a practically important consequence of this misattribution: overconfidence when the internet is no longer available. Although humans have long relied on external knowledge, the misattribution of online knowledge to the self may be facilitated by the swift and seamless interface between internal thought and external information that characterizes online search. Online search is often faster than internal memory search, preventing people from fully recognizing the limitations of their own knowledge. The internet delivers information seamlessly, dovetailing with internal cognitive processes and offering minimal physical cues that might draw attention to its contributions. As a result, people may lose sight of where their own knowledge ends and where the internet’s knowledge begins. Thinking with Google may cause people to mistake the internet’s knowledge for their own.

人们经常在互联网上搜索信息。八次实验（n= 1,917）提供的证据表明，当人们“谷歌”搜索在线信息时，他们无法准确地区分存储在自己记忆中的内部知识和存储在互联网上的外部知识。相对于只使用自己知识的人，使用谷歌回答一般知识问题的人不仅对自己获取外部信息的能力更有信心；他们也对自己的思考和记忆能力更有信心。此外，那些使用谷歌的人预测，他们将来在没有互联网帮助的情况下会知道更多，这种错误的信念既表明对先验知识的错误归因，也突出了这种错误归因的一个实际重要的后果：当互联网不再可用时过度自信. 尽管人类长期以来依赖于外部知识，内部思想与在线搜索所特有的外部信息之间的快速无缝接口可能会促进在线知识对自我的错误归因。在线搜索通常比内部记忆搜索更快，从而使人们无法充分认识到自己知识的局限性。互联网无缝地传递信息，与内部认知过程相吻合，并提供最小的物理线索，可能会引起人们对其贡献的关注。结果，人们可能会忘记自己的知识在哪里结束，而互联网的知识从哪里开始。与谷歌一起思考可能会导致人们将互联网的知识误认为是他们自己的。