[user453]

Interesting study but I don't really get the point of the search group. Looking at the essay prompts, they all seem like fluffy, opinion based stuff. How would you even use a search engine to help you in that case? Quote some guy who had an opinion? Personally I think my approach would be identical whether put in the web-search or the only-brain group.

[nk_mit]

Search Engine is a tool, similar to the one we have now, LLM. It seemed unfair to compare a purely no-tools approach (Brain-only) with a tool (LLM), thus the first motivation of including it. The second one is that we had already seen several studies exploring the Search Engine and its effects on one’s brain. This allows us to ground the research a bit and have a solid base. Finally, I think you had just responded to your own question in your own statement - indeed, to get a user exposed to other opinions. Echo chambers are present in both cases, but it is also important to understand what was the training dataset for ChatGPT and what is the current trend in Google keyword planner (see the example on homeless and giving in the Discussion of the paper). Hope it is more clear now.