How the Internet Affects Our Memories: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips [updated] - http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post...
Aug 22, 2012
from
CW,
Ken Morley,
Maitani,
Shevonne,
Raumausstatter,
samet,
Gepetto,
etesien,
Mohir,
logoped,
Dana Del Rey,
Koleksiyoner Ali,
Gökhan Yu,
and
Angelo Selvini
liked this
Abstract:
“The advent of the Internet, with sophisticated algorithmic search engines, has made accessing information as easy as lifting a finger. No longer do we have to make costly efforts to find the things we want. We can “Google” the old classmate, find articles online, or look up the actor who was on the tip of our tongue. The results of four studies suggest that when faced with difficult questions, people are primed to think about computers and that when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it. The Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves.”
- Amira
“We investigate whether the Internet has become an external memory system that is primed by the need to acquire information. If asked the question whether there are any countries with only one color in their flag, for example, do we think about flags—or immediately think to go online to find out? Our research then tested if, once information has been accessed, our internal encoding is increased for where the information is to be found rather than for the information itself. (…)
And transactive memory is also evident when people seem better able to remember which computer folder an item has been stored in than the identity of the item itself. These results suggest that processes of human memory are adapting to the advent of new computing and communication technology."
- Amira
"Just as we learn through transactive memory who knows what in our families and offices, we are learning what the computer “knows” and when we should attend to where we have stored information in our computer-based memories. We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems that remember less by knowing information than by knowing where the information can be found. (...) We have become dependent on them to the same degree we are dependent on all the knowledge we gain from our friends and coworkers—and lose if they are out of touch. The experience of losing our Internet connection becomes more and more like losing a friend. We must remain plugged in to know what Google knows.”
- Amira
?
- avatar8
With each step forward in objectification of our memories - invention and spread of script - invention and spread of printed books - invention and spread of computers/the internet people lost parts of their internal memory skills, gaining external memory instead.
- Maitani
Using tools directs our evoluation, surely.
- avatar8