Technology Is Ruining Our Memories—And Also Might Be Making Us Smarter
New Republic:
With Facebook and cellphones, we no longer have to remember our friends’ birthdays or their phone numbers. A new study shows how all that forgetting might be a good thing.
Saving information on a computer changes the way our brains store information, making it easier to learn something new, according to scientists at University of California, Santa Cruz. “By saving some information, people put themselves in a better position to remember other information,” the Psychological Science study says.
Outsourcing info for later wasn’t invented with the PC, of course: writing a shopping list or scribbling on a post-it serve the same function. But technology has revolutionized how much we can outsource, and how accessible that information then is.
Read the whole story: New Republic
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