Why do we trust chatbots and how can we use them more wisely? A psychologist explains

Decades of research on processing fluency show that the easier information is to take in, the truer it feels. (Piqsels) Why do we trust chatbots and how can we use them more wisely? A psychologist explains Published: September 1, 2026 2.49pm EDT Share article Print article Sometime this week, you probably did it: A question came up, and instead of searching for the answer online or reaching for a book, you asked a chatbot for it. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. By February this year, ChatGPT alone had 900 million weekly users, and a large study found that people mostly use it for searches under the broad topics of “seeking information,” “practical guidance” and “writing.” As a researcher with a PhD in developmental psychology, studying how people learn and stay informed in digital environments, I believe there is a lot we don’t yet understand about what this means for our societies. This is a shift in how we meet information, how we trust it and how we learn. One fluent answer In the past, finding information involved consulting various sources like books, newspapers, encyclopedias and people. These sources often disagreed, and assembling an answer required effort. Our judgment was formed in the gaps between them. Read more: Is your AI chatbot manipulating you? Subtly reshaping your opinions? Then, search engines emerged. For about two decades, they provided ranked arguments for questions. While they offered shortcuts, they still showed that answers had rivals. Even if you chose the first option, you could still explore the alternatives. AI chatbots changed this dynamic. Now the chatbot gives you one paragraph, sounding fluent and settled. Do you click through? The Pew Research Center tracked real browsing behaviour and found that when Google shows an AI summary above the results, people clicked on the actual source roughly half as often — eight per cent of visits instead of 15 per cent. Even more strikingly, people clicked on the links inside the AI summary only one per cent of the time. Often, if the question is answered, the sources go unchecked. And yet research shows that if we read conflicting information, it enhances our recall of the sources, compared with consuming information that simply agrees. The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report for 2026 finds 10 per cent of people worldwide now use an AI chatbot for news every week, where this rate increases to 16 per cent for individuals under 35. And only 42 per cent of…