Monday, July 18, 2011

The Google Effect?

In an interesting article published online in Friday's Science, Dr. Betsy Sparrow talks about her study assessing the effects of the Internet on people's memory. Do we, as modern people, rely on the Internet as a giant, collective memory bank and save our own brain-space for the things that are most important to us (and not readily available online)?

Sparrow's study provides some convincing evidence that this may be exactly what we are doing. If we know that we are more likely and able to look something up in the future, we are less likely to retain that content in our own brain.

What are your thoughts on how this might effect the future of education? Not just online learning, but the classroom experience, as well?