Internet changing how people recall facts, study suggests - The Boston Globe

Longer-term consequences tbd

“Our memories are changing,’’ said Daniel Wegner, a psychology professor at Harvard and the senior author of the study. “So we remember fewer facts and we remember more sources, which website you saw it on or whose e-mail to look in to find that. . . . It’s like having information at our fingertips makes us always go to our fingertips.’’

The findings, published online by the journal Science, will feel familiar to anyone who has lost Internet access for a matter of hours and felt suddenly helpless or gone through connectivity withdrawal on vacation. But the findings also have broader implications for how we learn, both in the classroom and in old age.

Internet changing how people recall facts, study suggests - The Boston Globe