Consider the search engine, one of our most widely used technologies. Prior to its arrival, if you wanted to know something, you went to a library—which took time. How much? Back in 2014, University of Michigan behavioral economist Yan Chen gave participants a bunch of questions, provided half of them with internet access and the other half with a library. Then she started the clock. Online inquiries averaged seven minutes an answer, offline required twenty-two, meaning every time we type a query into a search engine, technology saves us fifteen minutes.
