The internet has a reputation for harbouring know-it-alls. Commenters on articles, bloggers, even your old school friends on Facebook all seem to swell with confidence in their understanding of exactly how the world works (and they are eager to share that understanding with everyone and anyone who will listen). Now, new research reveals that just having access to the world's information can induce an illusion of overconfidence in our own wisdom. Fortunately the research also shares clues as to how that overconfidence can be corrected.

Specifically, we are looking at how the internet affects our thinking about what we know, a topic psychologists call metacognition. When you know you are boasting, you are being dishonest, but you haven't made any actual error in estimating your ability. If you sincerely believe you know more than you do then you have made an error. The research suggests that an illusion of understanding may actually be incredibly common, and that this metacognitive error emerges in new ways in the age of the internet.