Your Brain on Google

Human memory adapts to technology

Google is becoming your brain’s external hard drive. A new study shows that the regular use of search engines and online reference materials is affecting the way users remember and gather information.

The research, led by Betsy Sparrow at Columbia University, tested subjects in a series of four tests aimed at assessing how people recall pieces of trivia. The first round of experiments found that subjects were less likely to remember something if they thought they would be able to easily retrieve it from a computer later.

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