A recent study has confirmed that the search engine Google is changing your brain and altering the way it works, seriously. But then again, this really shouldn’t come as a surprise since any new technology is going to change the way that our neurons fire and brain works.
Anyways, a group of people got money for a study called “The Google Effect” led by Betsy Sparrow at Columbia University. Findings from the study led by Betsy were published in the popular journal, “Science.”How is Google changing your brain? What did The Google Effect study find?Contrary to popular myth that using the internet is making people dumber, that wasn’t what the researchers found.
What they found was the fact that using the Google search engine causes the brain to reorganize its memories for information. Instead of relying on what is called “Rote memory,” people are using new technology such as their computers and Google to get the job done. In other words, instead of people using their brains directly to pull up information are basically saying, “I can just quick go Google it instead of try to test my memory.”Are human brains evolving with technology?
The findings shouldn’t really come as a surprise because people’s brains change as they have new experiences. If you blindfold yourself for a few days and cannot rely on vision, your brain will naturally rewire itself so that your sense of sound becomes more enhanced; this is a proven phenomenon. Similarly if you lost your hearing for a few days, you would begin to have increased visual skills.Anyways, it makes total sense that since new technology is always being introduced that our brains evolve as we learn how to use it.
These days it makes way more sense to just Google something rather than sit for an hour and try to dig a memory out of our subconscious. With such easy access to Google via phones, computers, iPads, etc. when people don’t know the answer to something or need to look up information, they just Google it. The study basically says that we are outsourcing our rote memory search to Google and taking the job away from our brain.We know where to go to find information: GoogleSparrow was quoted as saying,
“We’re not thoughtless empty-headed people who don’t have memories anymore.” She continued stating, “But we are becoming particularly adept at remembering where to go find things. And that’s kind of amazing.”
What else is crazy is that Sparrow et al. at Columbia found that people are more likely to remember trivial facts if they think it will get erased from their computer, but will forget it if they are sure that it will be there. I’m sure I would fall victim to this as well because I rely on my computer for a lot of information. Knowing what Sparrow has done though and found through her study makes a lot
About the author
Bangkok Correspondent for Siam News Network. Editor at Thailand Business News
