Chapter 2: Is it so Hard to Seek Help and so Easy to Use Google?

One of the most important issues in help-seeking theory and research is that of help versus information seeking: they can both be solutions when faced with difficulties during learning and performance. Karabenick (2006) introduces the topic of help seeking as behavior adopted if “[previous] efforts are ineffective” (p. 1). In the list of previous efforts, there is “searching for information available online.” Thus help seeking appears as a secondary solution to deal with difficulties, whereas searching for information online appears as a primary solution. The literature on help seeking (where the helper is a human) emphasizes its demands and difficulties whereas the literature on information seeking (where the source of help comes from the digital environment) focuses on its relative ease. Nevertheless, in terms of its relative cognitive complexity, interacting with humans can be easier than with machines. That is because communication with humans is based on primary, implicit and flexible knowledge that does not involve particular cognitive cost (e.g., Geary, 2008), whereas communication with machines requires secondary, explicit and rigid knowledge that involves cognitive effort, especially when the machine is new and can therefore be very costly (e.g., Wickens, John, Liu, & Gordon Becker, 2004). From the latter perspective, information search should be preferred since it is deemed easier than help seeking and should be preferred over seeking help from humans.