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{{short description|Inability to remember important information because of the ease of looking online}}
The '''Google effect''', also called '''digital amnesia''',<ref name=WTOP/> is the tendency to forget information that can be found readily online by using Internet [[search engine]]s
==History==
The phenomenon was first described and named by Betsy Sparrow ([[Columbia University
The term "digital amnesia" was coined by [[Kaspersky Lab]] for the results of an unreviewed survey in 2015 by the security vendor, which said, "The results reveal that the 'Google Effect' likely extends beyond online facts to include important personal information."<ref name=WTOP>{{cite news|url=http://wtop.com/health/2015/07/study-most-americans-suffer-from-digital-amnesia/|title=Study: Most Americans suffer from 'Digital Amnesia'|work=WTOP-FM|date=July 1, 2015|
==Phenomenon ==
The original 2011 study concluded with three main findings. First, people are primed to think of computers when asked general knowledge questions, even when they know the correct answer. In addition, this effect is especially pronounced if the question is difficult and the answer is unknown. Secondly, people do not tend to remember information if they believe it will be available to look up later. By contrast, an explicit instruction to remember the material does not have a significant effect on recall. Lastly, if the information is saved, people are much more likely to remember where the information is located than to recall the information itself. In addition, people tend to remember either the fact or the location, but not both; this effect persists even when the information is more memorable than the name of the location.<ref name="Sparrow2011" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last = Olson|first = Curtis A.|date = 2012-12-01|title = Focused search and retrieval: The impact of technology on our brains|journal = Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions|language = en|volume = 32|issue = 1|pages = 1–3|doi = 10.1002/chp.21117|pmid = 22447705}}</ref>
A 2012 study by Lav R. Varshney has since proposed that the Google effect can also be seen in doctoral [[theses]], claiming that a longitudinal increase in the number of references cited reflects a tendency for improved [[memory]] of where to find relevant information (i.e. which papers contain the information), rather than of the information itself.<ref>{{Cite journal|last = Varshney|first = Lav R.|date = 2012-02-10|title = The Google effect in doctoral theses|journal = Scientometrics|language = en|volume = 92|issue = 3|pages = 785–793|doi = 10.1007/s11192-012-0654-4|s2cid = 12426806}}</ref> Furthermore, a related phenomenon has been described in which information learned through the internet is recalled less accurately and with less confidence than information learned via an [[encyclopedia]]. Additionally, those recalling information learned via the Internet showed decreased activations in several brain regions—including the bilateral occipital gyrus,
=== Transactive memory ===
Sparrow et al. originally claimed that reliance on computers is a form of [[transactive memory]], because people share information easily, forget what they think will be available later, and remember the location of information better than the information itself. They posited that people and their computers are becoming "interconnected systems"; the same underlying processes used in traditional transactive memory to learn who in our social networks know what is also being extended to encompass what a computer knows and how to find it.<ref name="Sparrow2011" />
The reliance on computers has raised concerns, such as when it prevents one from processing information and internalizing it. In addition, people appear less confident in recalling information learned through Internet searching and that recent Internet searching may promote motivation to use the Internet.<ref name="Rowlandsetal.(2008)">{{cite journal|last1=Rowlands|first1=Ian|last2=Nicholas|first2=David|last3=Williams|first3=Peter|last4=Huntington|first4=Paul|last5=Fieldhouse|first5=Maggie|last6=Gunter|first6=Barrie|last7=Withey|first7=Richard|last8=Jamali|first8=Hamid R.|last9=Dobrowolski|first9=Tom|last10=Tenopir|first10=Carol|title=The Google generation: the information behaviour of the researcher of the future|journal=ASLIB Proceedings|date=2008|volume=60|issue=4|pages=290–310|doi=10.1108/00012530810887953|s2cid=15674801 }}</ref>
However, several researchers have questioned whether the Google effect is a form of transactive memory, arguing that no transaction is going on between the person and the computer. Therefore, computer networks and the Internet cannot be conceived as a distributed cognitive system. Rather, computers are merely tools exploited to help trigger a memory or to easily look up information. Unlike in traditional transactive memory, the information is not lost without the Internet, but merely slower and more difficult to find.<ref>{{Cite journal|last = Huebner|first = Bryce|date = 2016-03-01|title = Transactive Memory Reconstructed: Rethinking Wegner's Research Program|journal = The Southern Journal of Philosophy|language = en|volume = 54|issue = 1|pages = 48–69|doi = 10.1111/sjp.12160}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last = Huebner|first = Bryce|date = 2013-12-01|title = Socially embedded cognition|journal = Cognitive Systems Research|series = Socially Extended Cognition|volume = 25–26|pages = 13–18|doi = 10.1016/j.cogsys.2013.03.006}}</ref>▼
▲However, several researchers have questioned whether the Google effect is a form of transactive memory, arguing that no transaction is going on between the person and the computer. Therefore, computer networks and the Internet cannot be conceived as a distributed cognitive system. Rather, computers are merely tools exploited to help trigger a memory or to easily look up information. Unlike in traditional transactive memory, the information is not lost without the Internet, but merely slower and more difficult to find.<ref>{{Cite journal|last = Huebner|first = Bryce|date = 2016-03-01|title = Transactive Memory Reconstructed: Rethinking Wegner's Research Program|journal = The Southern Journal of Philosophy|language = en|volume = 54|issue = 1|pages = 48–69|doi = 10.1111/sjp.12160}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last = Huebner|first = Bryce|date = 2013-12-01|title = Socially embedded cognition|journal = Cognitive Systems Research|series = Socially Extended Cognition|volume = 25–26|pages = 13–18|doi = 10.1016/j.cogsys.2013.03.006|s2cid = 25795227}}</ref>
=== Replication ===
In a big Replication study published in Nature 2018,<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Camerer|first1=Colin F.|last2=Dreber|first2=Anna|last3=Holzmeister|first3=Felix|last4=Ho|first4=Teck-Hua|last5=Huber|first5=Jürgen|last6=Johannesson|first6=Magnus|last7=Kirchler|first7=Michael|last8=Nave|first8=Gideon|last9=Nosek|first9=Brian A.|date=2018-08-27|title=Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0399-z|journal=Nature Human Behaviour|volume=2|issue=9|pages=637–644|language=En|doi=10.1038/s41562-018-0399-z|issn=2397-3374|pmid=31346273|s2cid=52098703}}</ref> the Google effect was one of the experiments which could not be replicated.<!-- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0399-z -->
== See also ==
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==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20160313113045/https://kasperskycontenthub.com/usa/files/2015/06/Digital-Amnesia-Report.pdf Link to the Kaspersky survey]
{{Google
[[Category:Memory biases]]
[[Category:Google|Effect]]
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