(Wired) Have you heard about the internet rewiring our brains and eating our memories? In her new book Mind Change, publicity expert Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield claims this is what’s happening. She describes the “Google Effect” where the internet becomes like an external memory bank. She cites research published in 2011 by Betsy Sparrow and colleagues – people who saved facts on a computer were less able to recall those facts later as compared with people who were told the facts would be erased. If we rely on computers in this way, what might become of us? “Imagine that in the future people become so used to external access for any form of reference that they have not internalized any facts at all,” Greenfield warns. Greenfield is not alone in her fears. “Poor memory? Blame Google” was the Guardian headline at the time, and there were many similar responses.
Scary eh? Hold onto your seat. I fear the Professor and her ilk are missing a more immediate threat. Internet use is widespread and growing daily, but on a global scale it still lags behind the use of notepaper. Paper may have been invented over two thousand years ago, but I can reveal exclusively that it is only now that scientists have identified the true danger of this technology to our memories.
