Availability of Online Information Affects Memory, Study Suggests
Online search engines such as Google are changing the way people remember information, a new study suggests.
Test subjects were less likely to remember information if they believed it would be stored on a computer, according to research published in the journal Science. The Washington Post and the New York Times reported on the findings.
In one experiment, test subjects who typed 40 trivia statements into a computer were less likely to remember the material when they believed it would be saved rather than erased. In another, test subjects who took notes on trivia questions were also less likely to remember the information when they were told it was stored in a computer.
In a third experiment, test subjects were told information would be stored in various files with names such as “data” and “facts.” The test subjects were more likely to remember the file names than the information.
