实用英语推荐：互联网让我们过度自信

Scientists have discovered that use of internet search engines and databases such as Google and IMDb.com to find information is making people lose their memory.

科学家发现，常用谷歌(Google)和互联网电影资料库(IMDb.com)等搜索引擎和数据库查找信息，会造成记忆力减退。

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.

耶鲁大学的心理学家发现，谷歌或雅虎等搜索引擎容易让人对自己的聪明程度自视过高，因为他们只要轻触指尖，就能获取全世界的知识。

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.

老师提醒，浏览互联网信息会让人对自己的智力有一种“非常不准确”的认识，还会让人在做决定时过于自信。

In a series of experiments, participants who had searched for information on the internet believed they were far more knowledgeable about a subject than 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.

在一系列实验中，用互联网搜索信息的参与者认为，比起用查阅书籍或请教老师等常见学习方法搜索信息的参与者，他们对主题信息的了解更加全面。他们同时还认为，自己的思维更加敏锐。

"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.

首席研究员、耶鲁大学心理学四年级博士生马修•费舍尔表示：“互联网是一个如此强大的环境，在这里你可以查找任何问题，几乎可以浏览全世界的信息。

"It becomes easier to confuse your own knowledge with this external source. When people are truly on their own, they may be wildly inaccurate about how much they know and how dependent they are on the Internet."

“有了这样强大的外部信息来源，人们很容易对自己的知识能力进行误读。当他们只能依靠自己的力量时，对于自己知识的匮乏程度和对互联网的依赖程度，他们的认识也非常不准确。”