Google is Changing Our Brains

When speaking in terms of the Google Effect, the term 'digital amnesia' tends to come up. Though it has been proven that our brains are functioning differently due to the rise in daily technology, are we really suffering from a form of amnesia?

I tend to think that one of the main reasons we end up not mentally storing important things is because we are confident enough in the resources we have. We know that everything we need to find is just the push of a button away, so why remember it? Studies have not shown that the google effect is making our brain less competent in any way, rather they show that we are still very capable of remembering things. We just "outsource" the search of information to our computers rather than searching for the information internally.

In a previous blog, I referenced Prof. Sparrow's experiment with Harvard and Columbia University students. Sparrow exclaimed how amazing it is that we are "becoming particularly adept at remembering where to go to find things", which pretty much stresses the fact that our brains are not becoming less competent at remembering, but instead our brains are changing in the way they choose to store information and data. The surveyed students showed that people are better at remembering where to find the facts rather than the facts themselves. This isn't something negative either. The study says that this is no different than the old-fashioned reliance on 'group memories'. For example, I may not recall what I did for my 10th birthday, but I'm sure I could find out by asking one of my parents. Sparrow noted that we have many people in our lives that we share memories with and that know specific facts that we can access through talking with them when we desire or need. It turns out that we are possibly just using the internet and smartphones, the same way we used to use people in regards to memories and specific data.
All in all, why must we remember things that are just 15 seconds, and one internet search away? Many speculate that once we stop worrying about memorizing information such as contacts and dates, we are able to concentrate better as a whole. Me personally, I find it intriguing that technology has advanced to a level where our brains can choose which information to store based on it's availability elsewhere, which is the google effect.

References:
http://www.mercurynews.com/2011/07/14/google-is-changing-your-brain-study-says-and-dont-you-forget-it/

Digital Amnesia In Practice (mobile phone use)

       From the unlimited access to information on the internet, to the smartphones that we carry all of our information on, technology is changing the way our brains store information. With infinite information only a few clicks away, it tends to be very natural for us to rely on digital devices to store the info we otherwise would have to remember. This is called 'the google effect', or 'digital amnesia'.

       Digital Amnesia In Practice

       The Kaspersky Lab shows us that most phone customers in the United Kingdom can't remember important phone numbers from memory including; those of their children, their children's schools, their place of work, their partner. However, half of these interviewed people could easily recall their home phone number from when they were younger. This directly shows how nowadays people don't bother to store certain crucial information, simply because they know it is available to them through their everyday mobile device.
       Researchers say that as we store more information on mobile phones, our brain is actually encouraged to forget the information it formerly stored. This is due to our limited brain capacity.

       Modern Day Reliance

       Kaspersky's lab shows that over half of the younger people surveyed, admitted that their phone holds pretty much all of what they need to know. Clearly, this shows how crucial smartphones and that other technology has become in regards to the information we rely on day to day. This study shows that the loss of a person's smartphone can not only be inconvenient, but devastating. Almost half (44%) of women surveyed, said they would be overwhelmed and saddened if they lost their smartphone due to the fact that they believed they would lose memories they could never get back. Also, a quarter of the women surveyed (and 38% of the younger people surveyed) said they would be 'completely frantic' since their smartphone is their primary source of data, images and contact information. Years ago these images would be tangible, and the contact information would be mostly stored in your brain and written down somewhere as a backup, not as a primary source of the info.

References:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/digital-amnesia-kaspersky-1.3262600 , https://blog.kaspersky.com/digital-amnesia-survival/9194