How Children Seek Out Information from Technological and Human Informants

Members of the current generation of young children have been exposed to technological informants, primarily consisting of devices that search the Internet for information, nearly since birth. However, little is known about how young children explore information using these digital sources. To address this issue, 30 preschool children generated questions about unfamiliar animals that were to be answered by either a human or technological informant (i.e., an Internet search program). Children also completed a measure of biological and psychological attributions to different types of information sources. Overall, children generated similar numbers of questions for each informant, and a similar proportion of their questions were causal in nature. Children also attributed few biological and psychological characteristics to the Internet search program. This suggests that, despite understanding that technological devices share few biological and psychological properties with people, young children seek out information in similar ways from human and technological information sources.