The New York Times writes about a study (only causal data) that reports that the widespread use of search engines and online databases has affected the way people remember information. The comments are worth pursuing they are perhaps as illustrative as the article itself.

The scientists, led by Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia, wondered whether people were more likely to remember information that could be easily retrieved from a computer, just as students are more likely to recall facts they believe will be on a test.

Dr. Sparrow and her collaborators, Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard and Jenny Liu of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, staged four different memory experiments. In one, participants typed 40 bits of trivia -- for example, "an ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain" -- into a computer. Half of the subjects believed the information would be saved in the computer; the other half believed the items they typed would be erased.

The subjects were significantly more likely to remember information if they thought they would not be able to find it later. "Participants did not make the effort to remember when they thought they could later look up the trivia statement they had read," the authors write.

I've noticed this trend in my own work (I'm sure many have).

I remember hearing that Einstein didn't remember his phone number because he didn't think he should bother memorizing something he could just look up in a book. In fact remembering where a fact is stored is better than remembering the fact itself, because you will quickly find out if you misremembered the location, but you might be unable to determine if you misremember the fact. Alice T.

I'm spending the summer studying Mandarin, a memorization intensive activity, and notice my own over reliance on a dictionary I have on my iPhone. Why memorize when the phone has instant recall? Is this laziness or am I being practical? I'm leaning towards laziness.

Internet Use Affects Memory