Wednesday, September 10, 2014
The Google Effect
What are actor's names of the four main characters in the hit 90's TV series "Seinfeld"? Are you an avid fan and know the answer to this trivia fact? Or is the first thing that comes to your mind IMDB? Humans are increasingly developing a more 'transactive memory'. This means instead of recalling a fact or answer from memory, we recall where to find this information. Many people have begun to dub this memory shift to a more transactive memory "The Google Effect." This is because a search on Google.com has become the easiest way to access information. The internet has become a human external storage system. The question is, how is the constant accessibility to information detrimental to society? Maybe this shift to a more transactive human memory is the answer. If we know where to find information it may become harder for us to actually remember a phone number, a fact, or a name. Goodness knows that our parents have a hard enough time remembering which of their children is named what. Just imagine our future generations trying to call 'Randy... er Paul... Andrew' to the dinner table.
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This a problem that I ponder a lot, really. We can "know" more than any previous generation in that we can get that information in a reasonably short period and report on it. I used to think that this meant that I had more leisure in deciding what staid in my head, but your alternative, while darker, is one that must be seriously considered. What if we're forgetting how to remember?
ReplyDeleteI don't think the scenario is really all that dark. Human memory was always rather unreliable, and barring any apocalyptic scenarios the transition from human memory to external memory will never need to be reversed. Accidentally mixing up names has always happened and will always happen to everyone :).
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