Posted on 03/20/2014 3:06:36 PM PDT by Dallas59
Google and other search engines have changed the way we use the Internet, putting vast sources of information just a few clicks away. But Lindsley professor of psychology Daniel Wegner’s recent research proves that websites—and the Internet—are changing much more than technology itself. They are changing the way our memories function.
Wegner’s latest study, “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips,” shows that when people have access to search engines, they remember fewer facts and less information because they know they can rely on “search” as a readily available shortcut.
(Excerpt) Read more at harvardmagazine.com ...
Lots of shallow understandings...
Einstein believedin not memorizing things you could readily lookup. I think I read that on the internet somewhere.
Google has changed the way I think. I avoid using Google because I don’t want them following me.
As a kid, I recall having to make an effort to look something up at say, the library or an encyclopedia.
Consequently, I "remembered" a lot more of what I searched for because it wasn't just a click away.
You had to work for it.
Still wish there were search engines back in the 70s, though.
I would have used the hell out of them.
This will bode well for Hillary! come 2016. *SPIT*
Guilty. I'm known among my friends to have huge amounts of random information in my brain. Sometimes it comes in very handy. Fortunately, my memory is good, but without a decent memory, you could get really squirrely surfing the net.
The keyboard has wrecked my cursive writing—which never was particularly good, anyway.
People from cultures that relied on memorization and oral transmission probably said much the same thing about writing.
As for me, I wans *ALL* the information that has ever existed. About everything.
Bull$h!t. They look up things and remember them.
The same phenomenon was noted when literacy expanded. Illiterate people remembered entire volumes of poetry, the Bible, etc.
I need google and the internet to look up things that I’ve forgotten. As for what I had for dinner last night, I rely on post-it notes.......
I have noticed the very same thing about my scribbling!
Taking rapid notes by hand in college wrecked my cursive writing. Shortly after college, I had a secretary who could type over 80 wpm on an electric typewriter with loooong fake nails. At the next job, I dictated reports so never regained decent handwriting.
In college I found to my dismay that I simply couldn’t read my own notes. There was nothing for it, painful as it was, but to switch over from cursive to printing. From that time to this, I simply don’t do cursive, apart from my signature.
Anyone remember “Ready Reference”? I loved it. You could telephone a reference librarian with a factual question, they would consult their collection of reference books and either tell you immediately or call you back with the answer. IIRC, this was in the 1950s and 1960s and I remember using it up until sometime in the 1970s.
Sometime in the 1970s, I began a collection of my own references. Not just encyclopedias, but various specialized quick reference collations. I was able to get rid of them (many were out of date) sometime in the late 1990s when I finally was able to access the Internet. This was pre-Google. Again, I was in love. I felt as though I had a universe of ready reference librarians at my very own fingertips.
Now, I am old and my memory is not what it used to be. When I draw a blank on a name, an event, a date, a spelling, a conversion (weight/temp/distance/currency), a specific term, I can quickly access the correct information. I fill in my personal blank quickly and that specific information will stay with me. There is no accumulated weight of lost or forgotten information. The gaps are so quickly filled, it is nearly seamless.
I don’t see instant information as a negative at all. It does not make me lazy. It is just as much of an adjunct to my own memory as contacts are an adjunct to my vision. I still need to know what information I need and I also need to know the relevant key words to find it. I still work for it, but it is less onerous work. It still stays with me.
Me as well. I have to print in block letters to issue anything legible.
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