Internet is well known to be a quick and easy way to access to knowledge. But did you know that using it could affect the way we store information?
The team of Betsy Sparrow, assistant professor in psychology at Columbia, analysed the impact of the huge accessibility of data through Internet on memory skills. One of the experiments consisted in typing one sentence and test its memorisation. The results showed that people were more likely to forget what they write if they knew that the data was saved. Moreover, easy access to data may also affect what we precisely remember. Indeed, in the experiment, subjects memorize better the way to find the information than its exact nature.
This study is one of the first that explores the effect of Internet on memory but it seems that the brain would adapt to new technologies and take profit of it to memorize only the more valuable information.
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