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Search engines 'rewire our memory' Internet search engines have changed the way that memory works, researchers have claimed.
By Shane Richmond, Head of Technology (Editorial) The Telegraph 15th July 2011
A study from Columbia University suggests that the ability to find almost any information via a few keystrokes on Google could make us less likely to remember things. Researchers believe that we tend to forget information if we are confident that we can find it again. If we think that something will not be easy to find again then we make more effort to remember it.
Betsy Sparrow, the psychologist who carried out the research, said: “Our brains rely on the internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker. We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.â€
The research is the result of four studies examining the way that memory works. One study asked participants to answer trivia questions before presenting them with a series of words, colour-coded in red or blue. Participants were quicker at identifying the colour of search-related terms, such as Google or Yahoo, researchers found.
Other studies looked at the ability of participants to remember information depending on whether they thought it was being saved or deleted. The researchers found that participants were more likely to remember information that they believed had been erased.
Participants were also more likely to remember where to find a piece of information than to remember the information itself.
The researchers believe that the internet has become an important part of our ‘transactive memory’, that is those pieces of information that we don’t remember but know how to retrieve when we need them. One example could be knowing that we can refer to a road atlas instead of remembering the direct route to an address that we visit only occasionally.
Ms Sparrow said the research had important consequences for teaching and learning. She said: “Perhaps those who teach in any context, be they college professors, doctors or business leaders, will become increasingly focused on imparting greater understanding of ideas and ways of thinking, and less focused on memorisation.â€
However, Eleanor Barlow, a consultant specialising in cyberpsychology, said that it is difficult to prove that the way memory works has changed, because of the internet or anything else, because there are few studies to refer back to.
She said the study’s conclusion that we make less effort to remember information that we know we can retrieve seemed logical but was not necessarily caused by the internet. She said: “If you had done that test 10 or 20 years ago, you would probably have had the same result.â€
She added: “Maybe people are more used to having to retrieve information now, but you would need to have a previous test to refer back to.†The study, Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips, which had 46 participants, was published in Science magazine.
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Search engines 'rewire our memory'
