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July 14, 2011
Does the Internet Turn Your Brain Into Swiss Cheese? Silly Rabbit, Of Course It Does
File Under: "Don't I (Just About) Know It:"
"Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips," was conducted by three psychologists: Betsy Sparrow, of Columbia University; Jenny Liu, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison; and Daniel Wegner, of Harvard. They conducted a series of four experiments aimed at answering this question: Does our awareness of our ability to use Google to quickly find any fact or other bit of information influence the way our brains form memories? The answer, they discovered, is yes: "when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it." -- Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Minds like sieves
Posted by Vanderleun at July 14, 2011 1:14 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
I thought that was what lawyers were famous for: not necessarily knowing information, but knowing where to find it. Please, God, I don't want to be a lawyer.
Posted by: ahem at July 14, 2011 1:37 PM
Undoubtedly explains why my memory is failing. I saw Beth while I was taking a walk this morning, but I can't remember her last name to save my life.
Posted by: Fat Man at July 14, 2011 2:16 PM
A bad question gets a bad answer every time. The net effect of the net is extremely positive. With TV strangling hundreds of millions of brains, there is not enough oxygen left to raise this question.
Posted by: james wilson at July 14, 2011 8:15 PM
. According to Plato, a text may be used as a prompt but will ultimately lead to memory loss since it will make the brain idle. Years later Immanuel Kant wrote in similar terms when he said that the "script" brought havoc on the "body of memory".
1) Plato, Phaedrus
2) Imanuel Kant, Antropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, Suhrkamp, STW 193, Frankfurt an Main, p 489-490
Posted by: Steven Dyer at July 15, 2011 5:53 AM