Computer and Library Learning (Archived)

For inveterate internet searchers, one must ask the question: Do we remember things in a different way since we started using the internet to find information etc.? A new study published in Science magazine suggests that some human memory capability has been exported to the Internet. Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow worked with Jenny Liu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard University on the concept of “transactive memory” in which individuals do not necessarily remember the answer(s) but know where to find it (them). A free abstract of the researchers’ study “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips” is available for viewing on the Science magazine website as of July 14, 2011.

Sparrow, Liu and Wegner conducted their research in 4 sections through the use of trivia questions. Firstly, the study participants were asked to answer some difficult trivia questions, followed by a colour naming exercise depicting words in either blue or red and then an examination of the participants’ reaction time to search engine word strategies. Secondly, the trivia questions were turned into statements which participants then read. Memory recall was worse when the participants believed that the information had been saved or made accessible somewhere, including the Internet, and better when test subjects believed that the information was no longer readily available. Thirdly, the same trivia examples were used to evaluate the test subjects’ memories on both the information itself and its location (when it was saved) or its erasure (when it was erased). Test subjects better recognized the statements which were erased than the two categories that were maintained. Fourthly, the test participants typed trivia statements, believing that all those statements they typed would be saved in one of five generic folders. The participants recalled the folder names much faster than the trivia statements themselves.

Dr. Sparrow and her colleagues concluded that the Internet has become humankind’s main external storage system, all the while acknowledging that there is still much research to be done on the Internet’s effects on human memory. The media have offered various perspectives on the “Google Effect”, for example, ranging from: “Web frees up brain power for analysis: Why remember it when you can Google it?” (The Dominion Post/Stuff.co.nz), “Google Effect: How the Bar of Possibility Makes Me Smarter” (International Business Times), “Is Google Ruining Your Memory” (Wired.com), and “Search Engines Ruin Our Memory, Make Us Smarter” (PC World); continuing through  “Google changing the way we remember, study finds” (Toronto Star), “Search engines 'rewire our memory': Internet search engines have changed the way that memory works, researchers have claimed.” (The Telegraph), and “Internet's memory effects quantified in computer study” (BBC News); to “Google turning us into forgetful morons, warn boffins: Surely I've seen this before – hold on I'll just …” (The Register) and “Minds like sieves” (Nicholas Carr on his blog Rough Type – Please see related blog post The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to Our Brains). The debate and the research will undoubtedly continue…

Take a look at “The Google Effect: has your brain been rewired? Take the quiz to find out” and try the non-scientific user poll.

Postscript: I confess that I used Google News to scan'the media reports in preparation of this blog post.