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The authors of Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips 2011 [0] suggest a mechanism. Basically rather than reta

The authors of Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips 2011 [0] suggest a mechanism. Basically rather than retaining knowledge we retain, essentially, the relevant search parameters. A more compact representation! The human brain is scary adaptable. [0]http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dwegner/files/sparrow_et_al._2011.pdf http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dwegner/files/sparrow_et_al...

trampi 11y ago
Thanks for posting this link. I always thought that my brain is rather storing the path to the information instead of the information itself. While learning for an "operating systems"-class I remembered that the information I was discussing with a fellow student was "on a left book page". In this case the information itself was also present, but it certainly helped me to prove my point of view in that situation.
dspillett 11y ago
Essentially we are cyborgs (humans augmented by technology) if you count technology not mounted too or in the body itself, because we augment our knowledge and memory using online access to information particularly through tools like Google provides. Some might argue against this and only count technology on or in the person, because we could also count books and libraries in the same sense - but I don't think counting the written word generally as a technology we use to enhance ourselves is invalid. It is as valid as counting the contact lenses and eyeglasses people wear to improve their vision IMO.
- eru 11y ago
  Yes. The written word is part of our extended phenotype. Google-ing (especially on the go on your phone) is just so much tighter integrated and has a shorter feedback loop. For an opposite view on how to use computers to enhance humans, look at SuperMemo. They use technology to help you practice remembering, not to remember for you. (It's like steroid that let you train harder, vs using a forklift.)
- noir_lord 11y ago
  > Some might argue against this and only count technology on or in the person, because we could also count books and libraries in the same sense. This is somewhat true but if I want to know the height of mount everest or the most common human blood group I can get that answer in under 3s with google which I couldn't do in a library, not to mention I carry everything indexable by google around in a little 5in across piece of glass and plastic.
  - dspillett 11y ago
    True. Carrying the device my be enough to constitute being "on the person", where people argue that is the line to be drawn.
    - noir_lord 11y ago
      I just want an in-eye hud overlay with beyond human resolution, it's not a lot to ask ;)
brobinson 11y ago
Reminds me of that Einstein quote: "Never memorize something that you can look up."
jghn 11y ago
I absolutely do this, and have so for a long while now.
tw04 11y ago
100% describes me. Having grown up pre-google, and now operating in a post-google world, it frustrates me to always know exactly what I need to search for to get a factoid, but never remembering the exact details of the factoid itself.
- zupreme 11y ago
  I think there has to be some correlation between the level of effort required to obtain a piece of information, and the importance our brains assign to it for the purposes of recall. I know people who can recite verbatim something they studied in a library 20 years ago but have to Google the same recent data each time they need to reference it.
fluidcruft 11y ago
This is interesting because the one thing I can't stand about large electronic documents is that I can't remember where things are and things are constantly re-flowing and appear different every time you look at them. In contrast with books/paper (that I grew up with) I "just know" exactly where I read things and more specifically what the page and paragraph of something looks like. I can grab the book, flip to approximately the right area, see the location and then find the passage. So in some respects the idea of storing the search rather than the content seems quite similar. Incidentally, annotations also provide strong anchors for this memory and a little doodle in the margins can "store" a lot of content for recall. Annotation capability on the internet seriously blows.

trampi 11y ago

Thanks for posting this link. I always thought that my brain is rather storing the path to the information instead of the information itself. While learning for an "operating systems"-class I remembered that the information I was discussing with a fellow student was "on a left book page". In this case the information itself was also present, but it certainly helped me to prove my point of view in that situation.

dspillett 11y ago

Essentially we are cyborgs (humans augmented by technology) if you count technology not mounted too or in the body itself, because we augment our knowledge and memory using online access to information particularly through tools like Google provides. Some might argue against this and only count technology on or in the person, because we could also count books and libraries in the same sense - but I don't think counting the written word generally as a technology we use to enhance ourselves is invalid. It is as valid as counting the contact lenses and eyeglasses people wear to improve their vision IMO.

eru 11y ago
Yes. The written word is part of our extended phenotype. Google-ing (especially on the go on your phone) is just so much tighter integrated and has a shorter feedback loop. For an opposite view on how to use computers to enhance humans, look at SuperMemo. They use technology to help you practice remembering, not to remember for you. (It's like steroid that let you train harder, vs using a forklift.)
noir_lord 11y ago
> Some might argue against this and only count technology on or in the person, because we could also count books and libraries in the same sense. This is somewhat true but if I want to know the height of mount everest or the most common human blood group I can get that answer in under 3s with google which I couldn't do in a library, not to mention I carry everything indexable by google around in a little 5in across piece of glass and plastic.
- dspillett 11y ago
  True. Carrying the device my be enough to constitute being "on the person", where people argue that is the line to be drawn.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    I just want an in-eye hud overlay with beyond human resolution, it's not a lot to ask ;)

brobinson 11y ago

Reminds me of that Einstein quote: "Never memorize something that you can look up."

jghn 11y ago

I absolutely do this, and have so for a long while now.

tw04 11y ago

100% describes me. Having grown up pre-google, and now operating in a post-google world, it frustrates me to always know exactly what I need to search for to get a factoid, but never remembering the exact details of the factoid itself.

zupreme 11y ago
I think there has to be some correlation between the level of effort required to obtain a piece of information, and the importance our brains assign to it for the purposes of recall. I know people who can recite verbatim something they studied in a library 20 years ago but have to Google the same recent data each time they need to reference it.

fluidcruft 11y ago

This is interesting because the one thing I can't stand about large electronic documents is that I can't remember where things are and things are constantly re-flowing and appear different every time you look at them. In contrast with books/paper (that I grew up with) I "just know" exactly where I read things and more specifically what the page and paragraph of something looks like. I can grab the book, flip to approximately the right area, see the location and then find the passage. So in some respects the idea of storing the search rather than the content seems quite similar. Incidentally, annotations also provide strong anchors for this memory and a little doodle in the margins can "store" a lot of content for recall. Annotation capability on the internet seriously blows.