Essentially, even in situations where we might be able to remember information well ourself, it can still be advantageous to rely on external tools to remember that information for us.įor example, while it’s possible to memorize the phone numbers of people that we meet as they give them to us, it’s often much easier and more convenient to simply rely on our phones to save those numbers for us. Second, relying on search engines and digital storage of information is often easier, faster, more efficient, and more convenient than relying on our own memory. This proved to be a more effective mode of work, as it helped the students reference more papers in their work, and reference papers published across a wider range of years than they were originally able to.
The researchers found that as search engines and digital storage became more commonplace, students started relying more on their ability to remember where relevant information appears in scientific literature, and on their ability to retrieve this information, rather than on their ability to remember the information itself. Essentially, this means that, in many cases, relying on search engines and digital storage can provide us with better access to information than memorizing it ourself.įor example, one study on the topic examined doctoral dissertations at MIT, and specifically how the way students cite sources changed over the years.
#Examples of social amnesia how to#
There are two main reasons why we make that choice.įirst, in many cases, we are better at remembering where information is stored and how to retrieve it than we are at remembering the information itself. We experience both the Google effect and digital amnesia in situations where we choose, either intentionally or unintentionally, to rely on external, digital storage in order to remember certain pieces of information, rather than on our own memory. Specifically, if digital amnesia is viewed as the tendency to forget information that is stored digitally, regardless of whether it’s publically accessible or private, then the Google effect can be seen as a subset of digital amnesia, which occurs in cases where people forget information that is stored in a digital location which is accessible via search engines.Ĭauses of the Google effect and digital amnesia the phone numbers of our contacts), would be seen as a form of digital amnesia, but not as occurring due to the Google effect, since this information is stored in a digital location, but is not accessible via search engines.įurthermore, under this categorization scheme, it’s possible to view the Google effect as being a subset of digital amnesia. For example, under these definitions, forgetting information that we’ve stored on our phone (e.g. However, it’s possible to differentiate between these two terms, if they are taken to refer to two distinct phenomena, with the ‘Google effect’ referring to our tendency to forget information that is available via public search engines, and with ‘digital amnesia’ referring to our tendency to forget information that is stored in a digital manner. The terms ‘Google effect’ and ‘digital amnesia’ are generally used interchangeably, and are often assumed to refer to the same general phenomenon, though the term ‘Google effect’ is significantly more common. The difference between the Google effect and digital amnesia For example, digital amnesia could cause people to immediately forget someone else’s phone number after hearing it, because they know that it’s stored on their phone. For example, the Google effect can cause someone to forget a certain keyboard shortcut that they use frequently, if they know that they can easily find it online with a quick search.ĭigital amnesia is a psychological phenomenon that represents people’s tendency to forget information that is stored in a digitally accessible manner, such as on their computer or smartphone.
The Google effect is a psychological phenomenon that represents people’s tendency to forget information that they can find online, particularly by using search engines such as Google. Accounting for the Google effect and digital amnesia.Causes of the Google effect and digital amnesia.The difference between the Google effect and digital amnesia.
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