The paper (unfortunately behind the ACM paywall) makes for very interesting reading.
There are a couple of points in the paper that aren't mentioned in the article.
The first one is the the difference between low and high NFC (need for cognition) individuals. The paper defines NFC as follows: A person with a high NFC loves to seek, reflect on and reason about information, whereas someone on the other end of the continuum only thinks as hard as (s)he has to and is inclined to rely on others. Their results show that low NFC folks actually took longer to complete the internalized version of the task while the high NFC folks took longer to do the externalized version. This reaffirms Haldar's point, but with a caveat - his conclusions are applicable only to "power users".
The other interesting thing was that both low and high NFC individuals got started on the task much faster (the paper calls it time to first move) with the externalized version. Presumably, all the individuals were told they _had_ to complete the task while in the "real world" many might have just given up. If you're designing an application, this is a useful lesson, getting started should be easy (i.e., an externalized interface). I guess this is also traditional wisdom, but it's nice to see this confirmed by peer-reviewed research.
From José Ortega y Gasset's Revolt of the Masses [1930]:
“Doubtless the most radical division of humanity that
can be made is that between two classes of creatures:
those who demand much of themselves and assume a burden
of tasks and difficulties, and those who require
nothing special of themselves, but rather for whom to
live is to be in every instant only what they already
are.”
What Ortega y Gasset argues, and what is still true today, is the true threat to our livelihood comes not from those working to change our society but from those who deny its imperfections, who see acts of self-improvement as admissions of weakness, and who define the correct view to be equivalent to the view of the majority.
> the true threat to our livelihood comes not from those working to change our society but from those [...] who define the correct view to be equivalent to the view of the majority.
Take care with that. Political implications could be huge. This can be read as declaring Democracy being a threat to our existence. Must be my bad english though...
> Take care with that. Political implications could be huge. This can be read as declaring Democracy being a threat to our existence.
An unfair reading to be sure! The statement should have been followed with a huge asterisk and an explicit qualifier. The thrust of what I meant hinges on the difference between (to quote N+1) a "formal democracy, or the equal right to an opinion, with a democracy of quality in which all views possess equal value — until some are proved superior by commanding a mob following."
I just want to clarify that I'm not making a normative claim about the behavior of low or high NFC individuals. I'm just saying it might be useful to know what kind of audience you're targeting when building your application.
There are a couple of points in the paper that aren't mentioned in the article.
The first one is the the difference between low and high NFC (need for cognition) individuals. The paper defines NFC as follows: A person with a high NFC loves to seek, reflect on and reason about information, whereas someone on the other end of the continuum only thinks as hard as (s)he has to and is inclined to rely on others. Their results show that low NFC folks actually took longer to complete the internalized version of the task while the high NFC folks took longer to do the externalized version. This reaffirms Haldar's point, but with a caveat - his conclusions are applicable only to "power users".
The other interesting thing was that both low and high NFC individuals got started on the task much faster (the paper calls it time to first move) with the externalized version. Presumably, all the individuals were told they _had_ to complete the task while in the "real world" many might have just given up. If you're designing an application, this is a useful lesson, getting started should be easy (i.e., an externalized interface). I guess this is also traditional wisdom, but it's nice to see this confirmed by peer-reviewed research.