Google is Changing the Way You Think, Say Researchers

Is Google changing the room we think? Leastwise one researcher thinks so: Columbia research worker Betsy Sparrow says that search engines comparable Google are changing human thought patterns. E.g., we're remembering less on our personal, but we have sex where to go and find it on the Internet.

The public debate over whether the Net is making us stupid has been around almost A long Eastern Samoa the Internet itself. Depending on how you interpret Prunella modularis's remarks, you could say that yes, the Internet is making USA stupid–or, you could enunciat that we're just using Google and other search engines as an extension of our brains.

Experts call this "transactive memory." In essence, you remember where to get the information–just non the information itself. The concept of transactive memory is nothing new: antecedent to the extremity historic period, we used non-digital "experts"–friends or books. The hunt engine has just made that process a whole lot easier (and faster).

"Our brains rely on the Cyberspace for memory in much the same way they trust on the memory of a friend, family phallus, or workfellow," Sparrow explains. "We remember less through knowing information itself than away wise to where the selective information can be found."

A series of four different experiments were carried out by Sparrow and her colleagues. Each tested how people remembered selective information if information technology was stored somewhere in hand (say, the Net), and in each case the great unwashe remembered things to a lesser extent if they thought the info was stored somewhere versus if they believed it was not.

In simple footing, if we can witness a piece of information online, we're less likely to remember the information itself. However, if the information isn't easy accessible online (and we know this), we're more likely to remember the selective information.

Could this phenomenon also cost chalked equal to a slothful brain? I'll leave you decide that.

Sparrow implies that we're not necessarily becoming inferior intelligent as a termination of the Internet and search engines. Instead, we're decorous more sophisticated in finding information. This might comprise a good thing–we could be freeing up brain power and memory for other tasks, which technically could give us even smarter.

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/481033/researcher_google_is_changing_the_way_you_think.html

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