Image: Mike Kemp/Corbis
Four years ago Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow turned to her husband after looking up some movie trivia online and asked, “What did we do before the Internet?” Thus, Sparrow set out to investigate how Google, and all the information it proffers, has changed how people think. Four psychology experiments later Sparrow has her answer, which was published in Science this past August. “[The Web] is an external memory storage space, and we make it responsible for remembering things,” she says.
In one of Sparrow’s experiments she presented two groups of undergraduates with trivia statements. Individuals in one group, who were told they could retrieve the information later on their computer, had worse recall than subjects in the other group, who knew in advance they could not do so. Together with the rest of her results, this finding suggests that Internet users have learned to remember how to find a fact rather than the fact itself.
Does this mean the Web is dumbing us down? Certainly not, she says: “Memory is much greater than memorizing.” Our brain may simply be adapting to present circumstances, Sparrow points out. “We’re in an Internet world.”
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6 Comments
Add CommentKnowing how to figure out an answer, imho, is better than memorizing facts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Education" has long been considered the ability to *find* the answer efficiently as opposed to "knowing" the answer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeing able to appropriately formulate the proper question far outweighs the ability to recall some wrote answers from a book.
Being able to perceive the problem, now that's the real trick.
sorry but you can not do that on a test or out in the field. Even an Iphone doesn't work everywhere. OMG, my doctor must stop in the middle of an operation to jog his memory of the proceedure... This sort of access for memorization is only for low type jobs like a history teacher not even the chemistry teacher or baker can afford to let the Internet be the storage for memory. I knew how to formulate questions and where to find answers long before the Internet, I would find the answers in Ben Franklin's invention, i.e., the Free Library of Philadelphia. no I am not quite as old as Ben but google is not the answer for anyone who works with intelligent folks, you can only get away with that if your fellow workers think you are god because they are stupid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGoogle is very useful for older folks who find a few gaps in their memory, things they know very well but just can't call to mind, e.g. the name of a plant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy googling something connected with the forgotten name, it will soon appear and be recognised.
Stupid is failing to use the resources available to you. Stupid is starting out the first line of your post that criticizes others without capitalizing the first letter. Stupid is not realizing that you can download web information to your local hard drive for use in the field. Sorry to break it to you but us highly intelligent people use the internet a great deal to store and retrieve information. Why waste mental resources when you can use them for higher purposes instead?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps you would have been more convincing if you had used proper grammar and your post seemed to be by an educated person.
I write software for a living. I use the internet constantly to look up proper formatting and usages for code.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny idiot can buy an encyclopedia and look up information. A real genius can figure out what to do with that information while an idiot can't.