Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Are Our Brains Being Boggled by Google? Study Says Humans Now Use the Internet As Our Main 'Memory' - Instead of Our Heads

Rob Waugh, Dailymail.co.uk, Jan. 25, 2012

From the article: "The Internet is becoming our main source of memory instead of our own brains, a study has concluded. In the age of Google, our minds are adapting so that we are experts at knowing where to find information even though we don’t recall what it is. The researchers found that when we want to know something we use the Internet as an ‘external memory’ just as computers use an external hard drive. Nowadays we are so reliant on our smart phones and laptops that we go into ‘withdrawal when we can’t find out something immediately’. In their paper, the researchers say that we now have access to the Internet 24 hours a day meaning we are 'seldom offline unless by choice' and it is 'hard to remember how we found information before the Internet became a ubiquitous presence in our lives'."  Read more

See Also
Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips
Betsy Sparrow; Columbia University, Jenny Liu; University of Wisconsin - Madison, and Daniel M. Wegner; Harvard University, AAAS, July 14, 2011