This infographic about how Google affects our memory really got my mind turning. It claims that our ability to find endless information instantly on the Internet (specifically Google) has diminished our ability to form memories and recall information.
The theory is if we don’t care enough to put in the legwork to research something, odds are we won’t remember it. We’ll just look to Google if we ever need to remember.
I hope this isn’t true. I’d like to believe it’s not true for me, at least to a certain extent.
Certain topics are definitely easily forgotten, and I have found myself searching for the same things over and over on Google. But are these things truly important? Likely not. Would I remember them if I had to search in a book? I don’t know.
If I care so little about information that I’m willing to forget it and let Google remind me, would I even be willing to put in the effort to find it offline? I would guess not. I can instantly search for every Starbucks in the city of Chicago, but would I ever do the legwork for this information? No. Because it’s just not that important to me.
I’d like to believe that information and knowledge I care about, I will remember no matter how I learn it. If I Google it or read it in a book, newspaper or research abstract, if it strikes me as odd, funny or fascinating, I’ll bet I remember it just fine.
After all, I tend to remember important facts that my mother said to me just as well as something I’ve read in a book. And isn’t asking my mother far easier than digging through a book? Maybe I’m not fully understanding the distinction between how these memories are formed, biologically speaking.
It would be interesting to see how our brains function when we read a book versus when we search on Google for the same fact. I wonder if they could tell how we were forming memories and if there was a great difference.
What do you think? Has Google affected the way you remember the little things? Have you found that you struggle to remember important details because of the way you learned them?
