Online searching can lead to internet fixation without reducing metacognitive confidence

Research has shown that searching for information online can increase a person's likelihood to search for other information online, a phenomenon known as the Internet Fixation Effect. In the current study, we conducted four experiments examining the boundary conditions of the Internet Fixation Effect and whether it can be attributed, at least in part, to how online searching affects metacognitive judgments. We replicated the Internet Fixation Effect but failed to find any evidence that it can be attributed to participants becoming less confident in what they know and can access internally. Instead, we interpret our results as suggesting that the Internet Fixation Effect may be better explained by participants becoming more habitually reliant on the Internet as a transactive memory partner within the context of an increasingly integrated and extended memory system.