• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

computers affect memory

burymecloser

Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Messages
516
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
6w5
Internet's memory effects quantified in computer study

Computers and the internet are changing the nature of our memory, research in the journal Science suggests.

Psychology experiments showed that people presented with difficult questions began to think of computers.

When participants knew that facts would be available on a computer later, they had poor recall of answers but enhanced recall of where they were stored.

The researchers say the internet acts as a "transactive memory" that we depend upon to remember for us.


...

[One] experiment provided a stream of facts to participants, with half told to file them away in a number of "folders" on a computer, and half told that the facts would be erased.

When asked to remember the facts, those who knew the information would not be available later performed significantly better than those who filed the information away.

But those who expected the information would be available were remarkably good at remembering in which folder they had stored the information.
 

Fluffywolf

Nips away your dignity
Joined
Mar 31, 2009
Messages
9,581
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Whilest this is mildly interesting, in itself it doesn't say much at all.

What I would like to know is this:

Does using internet as a 'transactive memory' allow us to use more brain capacity for other things, or does it neglect a large part of our brains capability alltogether?

I'd like to think our brains just get smarter and adapt to the new technologies in order to venture beyond them with the free time we get from needing to cramp everything in our skull instead.
 

burymecloser

Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Messages
516
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
6w5
What I would like to know is this:

Does using internet as a 'transactive memory' allow us to use more brain capacity for other things, or does it neglect a large part of our brains capability alltogether?
I wondered about that, too. Were the participants who used computers wasting their brainpower remembering where they stored the information rather than just remembering it in the first place, or were they retaining some of the original information and making a mental note on how to retrieve the details if needed?

I didn't click through to the original study, so maybe it's explained more fully there. I do think it's an interesting, if intuitive, finding about how we use our memories.
 

Z Buck McFate

Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
6,048
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I was just reading about this the other day, only the article I read was from American Scientific.

I’ve noticed this before on my own- I feel totally SOL when I’m stuck somewhere without internet, and it usually only takes a couple of hours. I got by just fine before having almost constant internet access, but now I’m constantly looking things up in lieu of just memorizing them. As the article linked above mentions, it’s not much different from the way I hardly know my own phone number anymore- let alone the number of people I call the most- because of speed dial. The internet really is like an external hard drive.


At Fluffywolf's post^:

from Am Sci article said:
Besides, memorization is overrated, according to Sparrow. "Obviously we need some baseline skill in memorizing things, but I personally have never seen all that much intellectual value in memorizing things," she says, adding that it is far more important to understand information on a conceptual level. As an instructor, she has seen how some students struggle with cognition related to the things she teaches, whereas they would do much better if they simply had to memorize a bunch of answers. "Memorizing is the easier thing to do, which is why students do it," she says.

Sparrow continues to research the impact on learning if instructors remove the expectation of memorization. "Will students better be able to learn focusing on conceptualizing and understanding information rather than simply remembering it?" she asks. "More likely, if a person does not think the information will be available later, they will try to memorize it, often at the expense of understanding the concepts."
 

kafkacat

New member
Joined
Oct 23, 2009
Messages
55
Enneagram
inxj
""I was just reading about this the other day, only the article I read was from American Scientific.

I’ve noticed this before on my own- I feel totally SOL when I’m stuck somewhere without internet, and it usually only takes a couple of hours. I got by just fine before having almost constant internet access, but now I’m constantly looking things up in lieu of just memorizing them. As the article linked above mentions, it’s not much different from the way I hardly know my own phone number anymore- let alone the number of people I call the most- because of speed dial. The internet really is like an external hard drive.""

^^ @ZBuck
I totally agree i think it makes kids lazy about remembering facts for example math. No one seems to know basic algebra without using a calculator. Back in the day ppl used to have to memorize the times table....do they do that anymore?
I have a thirteen year old nephew and he is guilty of being lazy with math homework and tries for every scapegoat imaginable. But....this is now the culture...everyone is like that. At least the 20somethings or younger. It sorta makes me feel like a sage. lol
 

dala

New member
Joined
Jan 17, 2011
Messages
214
MBTI Type
intp
This thread makes me think of people talking complaining that there are no minstrels anymore who memorize and recite long stories verbatim, and everyone is being lazy when they recite from a book.
 

Qlip

Post Human Post
Joined
Jul 30, 2010
Messages
8,464
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
My transitive memory never worked, I'm not missing anything.
 

Stanton Moore

morose bourgeoisie
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Messages
3,900
MBTI Type
INFP
The BORG!

Seriously, it represents a reliance of man on machine. This is not good.
 

Orangey

Blah
Joined
Jun 26, 2008
Messages
6,354
MBTI Type
ESTP
Enneagram
6w5
This thread makes me think of people talking complaining that there are no minstrels anymore who memorize and recite long stories verbatim, and everyone is being lazy when they recite from a book.

LOL
 

Giggly

No moss growing on me
Joined
Jun 12, 2008
Messages
9,661
MBTI Type
iSFj
Enneagram
2
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
So now we only remember exactly what we need to remember and nothing more? Well, you could see this as efficiency or stupidity.
 

jimrckhnd

New member
Joined
Jul 16, 2011
Messages
447
MBTI Type
INTP
You could easily say the same thing about books (it probably was). I think not having to memorize vast quantities of information frees my time for establishing connections between that information and seeing larger patterns. By way of example I have a periodic table hanging on over my desk. SOme of hte information I have memorized from repeated use but most of it? No. Why bother knowing the atomic weight of say Lanthanum when all I have to do is look it up?

I appreciate the efficency of books, computers, etc.. As my late father said "it's better to have a short pencil then a long memory".
 

Octarine

The Eighth Colour
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
Messages
1,351
MBTI Type
Aeon
Enneagram
10w
Instinctual Variant
so
On the other hand, we also have: Searching The Internet Increases Brain Function (older thread).

The fact is that we are treating the internet as part of our extended cognitions. I think overall the trend is beneficial, since it extends the amount of information we consider before making judgements.
The world is impossibly complex, so why memorise something that you don't need to?
 

Thalassa

Permabanned
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx
But don't we actually take in more information than people used to? I mean COME ON...we are bombarded with information. This must factor into this.

I also wonder if this affects people who started using the Internet at a young age more than those of us who memorized things up to early adulthood.
 
Top