A year ago I blogged on how important technology is in our schools today. I still believe it should be utilized in the classroom; however, I must wonder how it is used and how it is affecting our working memory and our intelligence level.
How often do you encounter a question and you turn to your smart phone or IPad to look up the answer? How often do you memorize a new phone number? Your brain can only hold a 7-digit phone number for about 30 seconds unless you continuously repeat the information. But is this process hurting our ability to memorize?
Unlike our long-term memory our short-term memory has limited storage. When we are concentrating on reading a passage for information and there is a break in our concentration, the content of what was read is easily lost (I call it the 30 second rule).
Before technology put information at our fingertips we stored information in the people around us. This is referenced as transactive memory. Our smart phones have replaced our spouses and friends for memory storage and remembering details. We have always stored information in hand written memos, books, and post-it notes. I know that when I write something down it helps me to remember. Googling something gives me an instant answer with little if no retention of the information. I usually have a ‘senior moment’ and must look the information up again when needed.
Senior moments are no longer for the seniors. They are becoming common among the young – especially to the millennials, ages 18-34. Most even have to check their phones to see the day of the week. The young tend to sleep less and multi-task more resulting in retaining less information and forgetting or misplacing things. The lack of sleep and multi-tasking would be the reason for memory loss, not the use of technology.
Information overload makes it harder to retain information because the brain needs time to process. Often, too much information causes us to loose focus on the big picture and the big picture helps us to remember smaller details that get filed into our long-term memory.
Some studies show that having access to search engine causes people to remember fewer facts and less information due to the ability to conduct a quick search. Presently nobody knows the long lasting effects the internet is having on logical thinking, remembering facts, or using information for critical thinking (the gfactor).
Realistically, we still have to remember things. If you are using a search engine, you may need to refine your search by remembering some facts or key words associated with the information you need to collect. Studies show that a person will remember facts when they think they won’t be able to find it on the computer. They are less likely to remember facts if they know where or if the facts were stored. In other words, if we know we can find information on the Internet, we tend to not remember the information. Search engines have just changed the way we remember things. We now just have to remember where and how to search to find the appropriate information.
For those who say that our memory is shrinking, I say to do more research. I say that memories are merely moving out of our heads as they have long ago with depending on our friends and relatives to help us retrieve information about various things in our lives. We’ve become a transient society – we change jobs and move away from friends and relatives to form new friends. Today, when you call a friend or relative you get a machine that tells you to leave a message. Our transactive memory has become our computer. We are not losing our memory it’s adapting and adjusting to today’s technological uses.
