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memory
You no longer remember information, only where to find it.
The 'Google effect' causes your brain to offload knowledge to external storage, leading to poorer recall of the information itself.
In a 2011 study, participants were better at remembering where digital information was stored on a computer than the content of the information. When they believed the data would be saved, they made less effort to encode the facts into their own memory.
Your brain is shifting from a library of knowledge to a search engine index.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner, 2011
- What the check found
- The core claim is supported by the cited study, though the term 'degrade' often implies a permanent loss of biological capacity, which the evidence does not definitively establish.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.