No, Google Is Not Rewiring How We Remember
from the let-it-go dept
There are a bunch of reports out concerning a new study claiming that Google is rewiring how we remember. It sounds good, but it's not really what the study appears to be saying. Basically, the study is saying that we just don't work as hard at remembering stuff we know we can access again easily. But I don't see that as rewiring. I think that's always been true. It's the same thing as people not remembering their multiplication tables as carefully, because they know they have a calculator. If anything, it just seems like an efficient use of your brain. The report also notes that people have an easier time remembering where to find certain info than they do remembering the info itself. But, again, that's just our brains being efficient. So I don't see how that's rewiring anything. It's just a recognition that, thanks to the internet and other technologies, we can have near ubiquitous access to certain kinds of info, and we function better by remembering how to find it, rather than the info itself. In fact, we've discussed this before, about how people quite reasonably use things like Google as their backup brain and how that actually has some benefits.
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"I don't need to remember my own phone number, I can just look it up in the phone book." - Albert Einstein
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— Abraham Lincoln
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Backup Brain?
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Re: Backup Brain?
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Re: Re: Backup Brain?
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Backup Brain?
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Comment Held for Moderation...
What did I do this time? ;-)
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Re: Comment Held for Moderation...
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as i said
linking is infringing will be a good topic now won't it. WHAT ya gonna do rip my brains apart.
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I call bullshit.
If I asked you how many nations have a predominantly red flag, before the internet existed your first instinct would be to think "Do I know that?". Your next move would be to, guess what, search for reference (e.g. encyclopedias). When asked for information you don't have, your first instinct is always to seek out reference. You search the net, look it up in a book, ask someone, one of these things will get you your answer and it's more effective than memorizing all those bits of information yourself. This is not new or unique to the internet age.
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Re: I call bullshit.
The report also notes that people have an easier time remembering where to find certain info than they do remembering the info itself.
I remember going through school - mostly before the Internet. The way I studied then, and still remember things now is no different. Someone asks me a question, the first thing I think of is where the information is, whether its the page of a textbook or a webpage. I then visualize the page, and have the answer.
Sure I'll use Google (or search my email archive, or open the webpage or document) to confirm I'm correct. And sure, I'll search Google for new information I don't already have.
If the last 300 years of modern science hasn't rewired our prehistoric-evolved brains, then the last 15 years of the Internet sure as hell has not.
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typo
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Re: typo
remember re·mem·ber (rĭ-měm'bər)
v. re·mem·bered , re·mem·ber·ing , re·mem·bers
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given that there's no edit function.
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If you use google as your backup brain then your brain has been rewired to use a backup unit. Seriously, is this tricky somehow?
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which is annoying, because i want to hit insightful but also realise it can be read in such a way as to make that the opposite of what i want to do :S
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backup brain
It's also much easier to rifle through someone's external brain than it is their bio-brain (which involves some nasty saws and glinty sharp objects).
[Please, PLEASE don't anyone link to the Marathon Man dentist scene. Please. I beg you.]
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Re: backup brain
i seem to remember a book or article or something about how humans were 'always already cyborgs'. (seriously, even just throwing a rock rather than punching something can count if you look at it from the right direction) this is just another example of that :D
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Re: backup brain
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disconnected from the source
I've had older people criticise my outsourcing of memory and calculation abilities to electronic devices. They often say, "What if you are cut off from the internet? Then what will you do? What if your phone is dead? These are basic skills that everyone should have-just in case you find myself without your fancy toys"
I respond by asking them if they know how to start a fire by rubbing sticks together, or if they can make a spear head by banging rocks, or if they know how to chase down and hunt animals using hand tools. "No? but these are skills everyone should have, just in case you find yourself without your fancy toys!"
Why do people only take issue with how brand new technology affects us?
to paraphrase a quote from Douglas Adams:
Everything invented before you were born is normal. Everything invented before you are 30 is new and exciting.
Everything invented after you are 30 is unnatural and scary.
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Re: disconnected from the source
though actually remembering Some of that stuff is still worth it. i mean, i can't do anything but really basic addition in my head anymore, but give me a pencil and paper and i can do a lot more.
anything other than long division that's complex enough to need a calculator i'd probably have to look up the equations for as well at this point, mind you.
*ponders* wonder what the computer analog for that is? ... maybe that trick where part of the harddrive is used as temporary RAM or something?
i've never, Ever been good at memorising stuff (so bad at spelling, and not that great at typing, until i started haning out in a chat room with 20-30 people where the text disappeared off the screen very quickly ... ended up learning to spell a lot better by memorising key patterns. turned it into muscle memory rather than memorised 'this is how you spell this word'. seems to work better.)
ok... rambled badly. i had a point when i started, i'm sure.
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Re: disconnected from the source
I have a lot more fun with this. I grew up in a very small community where my family were the only people under 60. That's no longer true, families are starting to move back there, but I digress.
I know how to make a stone spear, and hunt animals, and how to make and fire my own bow, and a bunch of other crap.
"Don't you know how to . . . just in case you lose your fancy tools?" "No? Okay, I'll teach you!"
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Re: disconnected from the source
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We Are All Doomed—Yet Again
— Plato, on the evils of being able to read and write, around 370BC
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Re: We Are All Doomed—Yet Again
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Re: We Are All Doomed—Yet Again
It's wonderful reminder that people were overreacting to technology as far back as 2300 years ago.
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I use DuckDuckGo.com
And before you start attacking, try it. Also read their informative privacy section.
Google is just a backup search engine for me now.
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You have declared yourself biased and unreasonable, nothing else you say can be trusted.
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Tech definitely has an effect
Now, since I've been using mobiles, I find it harder to remember bits of information like phone numbers.
The same goes for my programming skills, I used to keep algorithms, code snippets in my head, but now look them up on the internet when necessary.
Tech has definitely made me mentally lazy.
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Re: Tech definitely has an effect
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The one thing I do know is that anything you don't use frequently your body will discard and not waste resources on it anymore, so if people don't remember everything maybe is because they don't need that knowledge but they still have to cache the location of that knowledge I don't see how that is going to become something bad since basically what you are doing is storing a different type of data not stopping the use of your brain or anything like that.
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Today I had to deal with some cutco salesman lies, I could quickly pull a long list of well reasoned arguments as to why cutco was a crappy company in under a min. The only thing I needed to know before that was that cutco = scam.
Teach me where to find the information, don't teach me how to memorize it, I wont memorize anything I find is useless.
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It is a rewiring, but a useful one
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Remembering and looking up
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Google rewiring brains
I will argue that this is a very good thing. When I was younger, even through my 30's, I had so many things on my mind that I seldom had time to think of new things (same thing as the so-called "absent-minded professor", who has to clear his/her mind of trivia to deal with important issues; I wasn't good at doing that).
With Google et al, many of these things are now less intrusive, and I see it in a more productive mind, speaking for myself.
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Its called using tools
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Using tools does rewire
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