How Google is rotting our memories: Young people today have 'worse memories than their parents'

Adapted from DailyMail

IT provides us with instant answers to almost any question imaginable.

But our reliance on Google for fact-checking and finding basic information has made us forgetful, say scientists.

It was also found that many individuals view internet search engines as an extension of their own intelligence, rather than a separate tool.

As a result they still regard themselves as being clever even when they need the internet to find answers.

Those who thought it was stored were more forgetful, even if explicitly asked to keep the information in mind. In another experiment, the Harvard University team asked students to answer trivia questions with or without Google, and then asked them to rate their own intelligence.

They found those who used the internet had a significantly higher view of their own brain power, even compared with individuals who got the questions right through their own knowledge.

‘Using Google gives people the sense that the internet has become part of their own cognitive tool set,’ the Harvard University researchers concluded.

And rather than sharing information, people are more likely to save it electronically if they want future access to it, rather than relying on someone else’s memory, the researchers found.

Psychologists Daniel Wegner and Adrian Ward, wrote in the journal Scientific American: ‘Our work suggests that we treat the internet much like a human transactive memory partner [a person we share personal details with].

'We off-load memories to “the cloud” just as readily as we would to a family member, friend or lover.’
‘It seems that the propensity for off-loading information to digital sources is so strong that people are often unable to fix details in their own thoughts when in the presence of a cyberbuddy,’ the researchers added.

'They said that having the internet ‘undermines the impulse to ensure that some important facts get inscribed into our biological memory banks’.

The teams also found that many individuals now view Google and other Internet search engines as an extension of their own intelligence, rather than a separate tool.

Writing in the journal Scientific American, psychologists Daniel Wegner and Adrian Ward from Harvard University, warn that individuals who believe their memorable facts are saved online are much worse at remembering them.

'Our work suggests that we treat the Internet much like a human transactive memory partner [a person we share personal details with]. We off-load memories to "the cloud" just as readily as we would to a family member, friend or lover,' the pair wrote.

'The Internet, in another sense, is also unlike a human transactive memory partner; it knows more and can produce this information more quickly. Almost all information today is readily available through a quick Internet search. It may be that the Internet is taking the place not just of other people as external sources of memory but also of our own cognitive faculties.

'The Internet may not only eliminate the need for a partner with whom to share information - it may also undermine the impulse to ensure that some important, just learned facts get inscribed into our biological memory banks. We call this the Google effect.' 

In a series of tests, researchers found that participants were more likely to recall information if they believed it had been erased.

Those who thought it was stored on a computer were more forgetful, even if they were explicitly asked to keep the information in mind.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2510053/How-Google-rotting-memories-Young-people-today-worse-memories-parents.html