Searching Online May Be Killing Your Creativity, Study Warns
In the age of instant answers, reaching for your phone may feel like the smart thing to do, but a new study suggests it could be dimming your creative spark.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that using the internet during brainstorming can significantly reduce creative output. The study, published in the Proceedings of the ACM Human Factors in Computing Systems, reveals that people who searched online while generating ideas came up with fewer and less original solutions than those who relied solely on their own minds.
The team recruited participants to complete a common creativity task: think of as many unusual uses for a brick as possible. Half were allowed to use the internet for help, while the others had to rely on memory and imagination.
The result? Those who surfed the web produced ideas that were more conventional and less varied. Many repeated ideas they had just seen online. In contrast, offline participants took bolder leaps, explored more diverse directions, and offered more novel answers.
“Internet search is great for retrieving facts,” said lead author Prof. Erik Altmann, “but when it comes to original thinking, it can backfire by anchoring us to existing ideas.”
The researchers suggest that searching the web too early in the creative process may lead to a narrower cognitive focus, a psychological phenomenon known as fixation. Once exposed to others’ ideas, our brains tend to stick within that mental framework, making it harder to think outside the box.
The study doesn’t suggest banning Google altogether, but recommends delaying online searches until after an initial brainstorming session. “Give your brain a chance to surprise you first,” Altmann said.
As we increasingly rely on AI and search engines in our daily thinking, the findings are a timely reminder: real creativity comes from within, and sometimes, the best ideas are the ones you haven’t searched for yet.