As Americans, we’re the most blogginist, most tweetinist varmints to ever grace this dying planet; inheritors of the Industrial, Green and technological revolutions that have largely passed by the majority of the world’s poor, non-tweeting population, we’ve reaped the benefits of “progress” such that the sheer amount of information at our fingertips would make us the most enlightened society on Earth. So how does it work out that with our unfettered access to pure knowledge, we wind up believing wholesale the most idiotic of lies?

According to Newsweek’s Sharon Begley, it’s a matter of technology feeding cognitive dissonance:

Some people form and cling to false beliefs about health-care reform (or Obama’s citizenship) despite overwhelming evidence thanks to a mental phenomenon called motivated reasoning, says sociologist Steven Hoffman, visiting assistant professor at the University at Buffalo. “Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief,” he says, “people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.” And God knows, in the Internet age there is no dearth of sources to confirm even the most ludicrous claims (my favorite being that the moon landings were faked). “For the most part,” says Hoffman, “people completely ignore contrary information” and are able to “develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information.”

The most fascinating part of this article details Hoffman’s study, wherein voters were given literature showing that the Sadaam Hussein had nothing at all to do with 9/11 attacks. Then they were asked whether or not they still believed in such a link between the two.

Five argued that Saddam supported terrorism generally, or that evidence of a link to 9/11 might yet emerge. These counterarguments are not entirely illogical. But almost everyone else offered some version of “I don’t know; I don’t know anything”—that is, outright confusion over the conflict between what they believed and what the facts showed—or switched subjects to the invasion of Iraq. As one put it, when asked about his Saddam-9/11 belief, “There is no doubt in my mind that if we did not deal with Saddam Hussein when we did, it was just a matter of time when we would have to deal with him.” In other words, holding fast to the Saddam-9/11 belief helped people make sense of the decision to go to war against Iraq.

Whatever gets you through the night, I suppose… But when the erroneous mental gymnastics of a sizeable portion of the U.S. electorate threatens the lives of innocents abroad and (a la health care reform) at home, one might doubt, perhaps rightfully, whether an internet connection is a good thing after all.