'Google effect' leads to changes in memory

First, participants were asked to answer a series of difficult trivia questions. Then they were immediately tested to see if they had increased difficulty with a basic color naming task, which showed participants words in either blue or red. Their reaction time to search engine-related words, like Google and Yahoo, indicated that, after the difficult trivia questions, participants were thinking of internet search engines as the way to find information.

Next, the trivia questions were turned into statements. Participants read the statements and typed them into a computer. Participants who were told that the information would be saved on the computer had a more difficult time remembering the statements than those who believed the information would be erased.

Then, the same trivia statements were used to test memory of both the information itself and where the information could be found. Participants were allowed to take notes. Those who believed the information would be saved in specific computer folders had more trouble remembering the trivia statements than those participants who believed the information would be erased.

Finally, participants believed all trivia statements that they typed would be saved into one of five generic folders with specific names. When asked to recall the folder names, they did so at greater rates than they recalled the trivia statements themselves. The researchers noted that a deeper analysis revealed that people do not necessarily remember where to find certain information when they remember what it was, and that they particularly tend to remember where to find information when they can’t remember the information itself.

Human memory is “adapting to the advent of new computing and communication technology,” the authors note in the report.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Columbia’s department of psychology.

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