Google is gradually killing our Memory Power, says Study

by Swati on July 15th, 2011 3

There’s no denying that Google has made our life simpler by providing us all the information we need with a simple click of the mouse, but this over dependence on search engines to retrieve information, might not be a great idea if you want to stay mentally agile, according to a recent research done by Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow.

This research that studied the impact of search engines on human memory organization, says that, we forget things that we can find on the Internet. We are more likely to remember things that are not available online. And we are better able to remember where to find something on the Internet, than we are at remembering the data itself.

“Since the advent of search engines, we are reorganizing the way we remember things,” said Sparrow. “Our brains rely on the Internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker. We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.” Sparrow published a paper in Science is titled, “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips”, based on this research.

The team tested this theory first by giving participants a set of information. For some pieces of information, the participants were told that they could find the info using the Internet, and for others they were told that they could not get the info online. It was found that people were less likely to remember the data that they knew could be found online. When researchers told the participants that the information was stored in certain folders, they could remember the locations of the data better than the data itself.

So are Google, Bing, and Yahoo causing dementia in the current internet addicted generation, or it is making us so lazy that we are even reluctant to use our thinking power for carrying out simple mental tasks? Previous studies on ‘Internet and Brain’ have shown that surfing the web stimulates neural activity and enhances cognitive functioning. So, one cannot really say whether web and social networking sites are making us smart or stupid.

In any case, whether we have internet at our disposal or not, a lack of mental activity and unhealthy lifestyle can have a detrimental impact on our brain, and staying mentally fit, or ignoring our mental health, is all in our hands. So, blaming the internet would not be the right thing to do, according to me.

For more information on this research check out this video, where Betsy Sparrow, is discussing this research with the PBS NewsHour.