IT and Society: Search engines influence memory of people, a study found

Internet searches are making information easy to forget, as more and more people are relying on their computers as an “external memory”, announces Bloomberg with a reference to a study of Harvard University students.

About 60 Harvard students were asked to type 40 pieces of trivia, such as “an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain,” into computers, and were told the information would be either erased or saved. Those who believed the data would be saved were less likely to remember, reads the article of Science journal.

The widely available Internet has made it possible to visit the library in a twinkling where facts and information can be easily found. The study suggests that search engines such as Google Inc. and databases such as Amazon.com Inc’s IMDb.com serve as an “external memory, where information is stored outside ourselves”.

“We are becoming symbiotic with our computers, growing into interconnected systems,” the paper reads. “We have become dependent on them to the same degree we are on all the knowledge we gain from our friends and co-workers - and lose if they are out of touch.”

The research also found that people prefer looking for basic knowledge on the Internet. Another experiment, which brought together 34 undergraduates at Columbia University in New York, showed that people remembered where they stored their information better than they were able to recall the information itself.