This is How The Internet is Changing our Brains. Power & influence of Media (Google ,FaceBook).

This is How The Internet is Changing our Brains. Power & influence of Media (Google ,FaceBook).

Scientists say Google is changing our brains. Back in the pre-internet days, if someone asked you a tricky question, you had a couple of options. You could see if anyone you knew had the answer. You could pull out an encyclopedia. Or you could head down to the library to carry out research. Whichever one you opted for, it was almost certainly more complicated and time-consuming than what you’d do today: Google it.

Thanks to technology – and the internet in particular – we no longer need to depend on our sometimes unreliable memories for random facts and pieces of information. Think about it: when was the last time you bothered to memorize someone’s phone number? And what’s the point in learning the spelling of that long, complicated word when autocorrect will pick it up for you?

But with all the knowledge we could ever need at our fingertips, are we outsourcing our memory to the internet?

Our virtual brain

We are indeed, according to recent research. The latest study, from academics at the universities of California and Illinois, found that our increasing reliance on the internet is transforming the way we think and remember.

In the study, two groups of people were asked to answer a set of trivia questions. Those in the first group were told to use only their memories, while the others had to look up the answers online. Both groups were then asked a set of easier questions and given the option of using the internet. Those who had used the internet the first time round were much more likely to do so again.

How the internet changes our brains

This latest study builds on existing research that suggests the internet isn’t just changing how we live and work – it’s actually altering our brains.

For anyone familiar with the work of neuroscientist Michael Merzenich, this won’t come as a surprise. After all, that’s what our brain is made to do. “It’s constructed for change. It’s all about change,” he explains in his popular TED talk.

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