Is Google Changing the Way We Think?

Is Google Changing the Way We Think?

Is Google Changing the Way We Think?

Is Google changing the way we think? A new survey says it is. Or at least, our dependence on search engines is changing the way we remember things.

According to the survey, when we know where to find information on the Internet, we are less likely to remember it. Also, people are more likely to remember where to find facts than they are the facts themselves. This new method of remembering is called "The Google Effect.” To quote an article in The Deseret News, “We’re outsourcing "search" from our brains to our computers."

This does not mean that we cannot remember important things anymore. It means that the things that we remember are more likely to be personal things that matter to us and not trivial matters that can be easily looked up.

Some people might find this alarming. The study indicates that we are using the Internet the way we used to use friends and family, to fill in gaps in our knowledge like the name of our 2nd grade teacher or what movie starred Faye Dunaway the year we turned 15. To a certain extent, that is true. But what if nobody can remember the name of that movie or that teacher? Then it's good to know we can look it up.

And if your daughter asks you who sang a certain song, does it matter if you can tell her off the top of your head or if you look it up for her on the computer?

And if we no longer worry about whether we can remember the name of a song lyric or the date of someone's birthday, that's only bad if we think we would have remembered that information, anyway. The sort of things we are training our brains to expect to outsource to Google are the sort of things we probably would have just had to keep fretting over not being able to remember in the past, or that we would not have remembered in time, like birthday or anniversary dates.

Of course, if we don't remember trivia as well, we may not win on Jeopardy! or at our local pubs' Trivia nights. But we will have more time to think of the important things we can't just look up: how we feel about our family and friends, our personal philosophy, why we love our friends, the good deeds we can bring to the world, our next piece of fiction, art, or poetry...so if our brains learn to count on Google for the little stuff, maybe the big stuff will get the attention it deserves.

What do you think? Is it harmful to depend on the computer instead of trying to remember things yourself?