The Effects of Googling on Memory and Information Processing Part I: Effect of Googling in Short Term
Kailey Nichols | Fall 2019 | Bjork Lab
Abstract
The vast amount of information online makes it seemingly easy to rely on the internet for all of our questions. With Google at the edge of our fingertips, it may no longer feel necessary to store the information we seek on the internet, especially when finding it again is just a few clicks away. In this study, we examined the effects of quick searches, specifically “googling”, on memory. The study used two conditions, the think-first condition and the google-first condition, to assess whether a significant difference could be found in the prompted recall performance of these two groups who either had to guess the answer before being able to google the question or were allowed to immediately “google” the question. Preliminary results showed that whether one tries to answer the question first or immediately googles the question does not seem to change recall performance. However, data analysis is still ongoing.
Introduction
In today’s world, when someone has a question, the first thing they do is “google” it. In fact, it’s been calculated that there are over 63,000 Google searches every second. With the prevalence and integration of quick searches into everyday life come consequences, both good and bad. Among the benefits of quick searches, it should be noted that as the name implies, quick searches like Google are indeed fast. Moreover, Google offers a wealth of information, providing answers as simple or complex as the user requests. Unlike a physical library which has a finite amount of space and books, quick searches have almost an infinite amount of information, allowing one to “google” even the most obscure questions. However, “googling” may also present answers that are too simple and it can be difficult to vet all the information on the internet. “Googling” may also change the way we encode information, allowing us to be less motivated to encode information internally because we know we can always “google” something again if we need to. This last drawback was our primary focus in the following study.
In a study from Storm, Stone, & Benjamin (2017), the researchers looked at how one instant of internet use to answer questions affects one’s likelihood of relying on the internet for future questions. In the study, the researchers presented participants a list of difficult questions. Some participants were allowed to use the internet right away whereas other participants were not. Later these same participants were presented with a set of easier questions. Critically, for the second stage for easier questions, participants were given a choice to “google” or think first. Consistent with the fear that using the internet makes people more reliant on it, researchers found that even when presented with easier questions, participants who were initially allowed to use the internet were more likely to also rely on the internet to help them answer the easier questions in comparison to the group that relied on memory before. Thus it appears the more one uses the internet, the more reliant they become on it. Therefore, this cycle of internet use and dependence may explain how people become dependent on the internet, even for easy questions.
In another study, Sparrow, Liu, & Wegner (2011), researchers conducted four experiments looking at how the presence of the internet has changed how we think about difficult problems. The first experiment showed that when presented with challenging questions, people are primed to think about computers. Moreover, later experiments showed that when people think that they will have access to information in the future, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself. These results could be generalized to the act of “googling” in which an individual seeks out information with the knowledge that they will be able to seek out the same information with ease at a later time. This expectation that the information will be easily accessible later could lead to that individual subconsciously neglecting to ever truly encode that information.
Due to the results from these past studies and our broader interest in the effect of “googling” on memory, in this study we aimed to answer the question, are there ways of helping learners become more sophisticated internet users?
Methods
Participants
Participants were undergraduate students from the University of California, Los Angeles. There were a total of 177 participants (36 males, 133 females, Mage= 20.44 years) who volunteered for the study to receive course credit.
Design and Materials
The study was a 2 x 2 mixed subjects factorial design. The first independent variable was question difficulty which was manipulated within subjects and had two levels: easy and hard. Easy questions were meant to be somewhat common knowledge and thus, easy enough for the participant to be able to correctly guess before “googling”, such as “What animal runs the fastest?”. In contrast, hard questions were designed to require a participant to “google” the question before being able to correctly answer the question, for example, “What is the last name of the person who won the 1907 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on fermentation?”. Questions also came from four different categories: history, culture, geography, achievement. The other independent variable was type of encoding and it was a between subjects variable. Type of encoding had two levels, google-first and think-first. When presented with a question, the google-first condition prompted the participant to immediately “google” the answer whereas in the think-first condition, participants were asked to enter their best guess before they were allowed to “google” the question. Participants were randomly assigned to the google-first or think-first condition. The dependent variable was memory, measured on a ratio scale of free recall, specifically how many questions participants were able to correctly recall at an immediate recall task.
All participants in the experiment we asked to bring their own computers. During the experiment, participants were asked to use their own computers to “google” the questions that they were presented with. Additionally, participants were specifically instructed to use Chrome as their internet browser when “googling” in the experiment. By using their own computers and Chrome, the aim was to minimize specific item effects that could have been present by using the laboratory computers in which there would be a search history that could interfere with “googling” the same questions. Moreover, having to type the question into Google prevented participants from merely “copy and pasting” the question from the experiment, forcing them to physically type questions out and increasing the similarity to everyday Google searches, thus increasing the external validity. Along with their own computers, participants were provided with computers from the laboratory in which they had to enter their answers into. Within the experiment, there was a list of questions that participants were presented. As explained earlier there were two categories of questions, easy and hard. Every participant was exposed to all questions. Questions were presented in a randomized order to minimize order effects.
Procedure
During the experiment all participants were presented a question. In the google-first condition, participants were prompted to immediately “google” the answer by typing the exact question into their own computer, enter the answer that they found, and then the program prompted them to move onto the next question. In the think-first condition, participants were presented the question and then asked to answer with their best guess. After entering their answer, the think-first participants were then prompted to type the exact question into their own computer and “google” the question. They were then asked to enter their “googled” answer and then moved on to the next question. After being presented with all of the questions, participants played tetris as a distractor task. Lastly, participants were given a final task in which they were asked to answer the same questions without the use of their own computer which generated the results for recall performance. In this prompted recall task, participants were asked to enter their best guess. This concluded the experiment for participants.
Results
Although preliminary results show no significant difference between think-first and google-first recall, data analysis is still ongoing. As expected though, there was a significant difference between the correct recall of easy questions in comparison to hard questions with easy questions having higher correct recall.
Discussion
The lack of conclusive results in recall between the think-first and google-first conditions suggests a few implications and prompts a few questions. One implication and explanation for the results is that it may be possible that the mere act of “googling” prompts thinking. This thinking then prompts the individual to encode the information once they are presented with the answer. This would explain why the think-first and google-first conditions had such similar recall performances because both conditions required participants to “google” the question at some point in the experiment.
One question raised by these results is a question of how the recall performance was measured, specifically the timing of recall performance. In the case of Google searches, it may be that prompting the individual to take a test within the same hour of learning the material is an ineffective way of assessing long term memory. Other studies concerning the effects of spacing and cramming on learning have shown similar effects in which cramming and spacing may initially show similar results in recall, however, after a delay, spacing becomes significantly better for recall performance (Whitten II & Bjork, 1977). Therefore, in order to assess long term memory, the testing time gap may need to be lengthened to a few days. If the testing gap was lengthened to a one to two days later, it would be predicted that the think-first group would have increased long-term retention when compared to the google-first group.
References
Sparrow, B., Liu, J., & Wegner, D. M. (2011). Google effects on memory: Cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips. science, 333(6043), 776-778.
Storm, B. C., Stone, S. M., & Benjamin, A. S. (2017). Using the Internet to access information inflates future use of the Internet to access other information. Memory, 25(6), 717-723.
Whitten II, W. B., & Bjork, R. A. (1977). Learning from tests: Effects of spacing. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 16(4), 465-478.
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