Google and web browsing would make people mentally lazy: this is the result of research conducted by a study group at Columbia University in New York.
We need information quickly and the first thought is “Let’s ask Google“: raise your hand if you still regularly rely on textbooks, dictionaries, paper encyclopedias, and handed-down notes to find answers to your questions. Even simple cooking recipes are mostly searched online, despite grandma’s recipe books and cookbooks.
The habit of using the web and search engines to learn meanings of words, dates of historical events, laws, and much more, is now deeply rooted among internet users.
The advantages are obvious and in plain sight: universal knowledge condensed on the screen, always available within seconds.
However, apparently there are also some disadvantages to consider. In particular, according to the results of a recent study conducted by Betsy Sparrow from Columbia University in New York, what is at risk is mental laziness.
Information travels so fast that it doesn’t have time to leave a trace in our brain, which is overloaded and overstimulated by the web, to the point of actually becoming very lazy.
The “fault” is not with the search engine itself, of course, but with the fact that more and more reliance is placed on the web: basically, knowing that information will always be available online doesn’t put the brain in the right state to remember everything in detail.
The research was carried out involving two groups of young people: one was told they would have a PC available, the other group was not given this possibility.
The first group showed little memory of the knowledge acquired during the experiment, knowing they could rely on the PC’s content. The second group, without technical support, memorized better and more.
There is more: by telling the students the name of the PC folder where they could find the topics presented, the students showed they perfectly remembered the folder name but did not memorize anything else.
Years ago, similar conclusions were drawn regarding the use of cell phones which, by allowing numbers to be recalled directly from the contact list, put the human memory “into retirement.”
All in all, if these are the results of using new technologies, going back to reciting poems and practicing crossword puzzles and similar games might give the brain a helping hand.
Be the first to comment