The Effects of Googling on Memory and Information Processing Part II: Assessing the Effect of a Time Lag

Kailey Nichols | Winter 2020 | Bjork Lab

Abstract

At this point in time, the phrase, “to google something” has become synonymous with searching for the answer to a question online. When we have a question, we don’t even think twice before we take out our phones or open up our laptops and type in our question, giving us instant access to pretty much any information we may be seeking. But, what are the implications of this dependence on the internet? Does it matter if we try to answer the question ourselves before we immediately “google” for all of our answers? How does Googling impact our memory of information later on? These are all questions that we sought to answer in our study. However, unlike other information, the question of how the internet affects long term memory and memory in general is not quite as easy to answer as a simple google search. Building off of the inconclusive results from our previous experiment, in this experiment we tried to assess the longer term effects of “googling” by introducing a time delay between when the participant “googled” and learned the material and when they were tested on it.

Introduction

There are many benefits to being able to “google” information including: getting quick answers, having easy access to information regardless of physical location, and equal access to information. However, possible drawbacks may include: being presented answers that are too simple, trustability of material found on the internet, and being presented information more quickly may actually make it more difficult for us to remember that same information later on. This last drawback was our primary focus in this study. 

Previous research studies have looked at our dependence on the internet showing that once people start using the internet to answer their questions, it can be difficult to stop, even when given easy questions (Storm, Stone, & Benjamin, 2017). Other studies have analyzed the words we think of when presented challenging questions. In one such study, they actually found that when presented difficult questions, people tended to think about computers and words related to computers (Sparrow, Liu, & Wegner, 2011). Moreover, this same study showed that when people think they will have access to the internet, they are less likely to remember information that they learned when they had that expectation of having internet access. 

Based on these past results, in this experiment we aimed to look at the effects of “googling” on how people remembered information later on.

Methods and Procedure

In the study, UCLA undergraduate students were placed in one of two different conditions. In the first condition, the participant went through the normal learning procedure with a test which asked participants to answer questions based on the information they had just learned. In the second condition, participants still went through the normal learning procedure, however, they were not tested immediately after. Instead, these participants were given their final test a day later. 

Questions that were asked on the test were simple questions in which the participant was either asked to guess on, or “google” for the answer and then type it in. One example question is: “what is the name of the constellation that looks like a flying horse?” (the answer is Pegasus). Additionally, a mix of easy and hard questions were asked in order to look at possible effects of “googling” on questions that the participant probably already knew the answer to compared to completely new information. Questions also came from four different categories: history, culture, geography, achievement. The dependent variable being measured in this study was memory. Memory was measured by how many questions participants were able to correctly remember when given the final test. 

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 the effect of search history that could interfere with “googling” the same questions. For example, when someone has already “googled” a question and then “googles” it again, the question may pop up as a suggested search and the answers generated may be even better catered towards that question since it has been asked before. 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 how much we can generalize the results from this experiment to the real-world application of internet use and memory in people. Along with their own computers, participants were given laboratory computers 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 the effect of order (participants may pay close attention and be more focused on the first few questions in a test). 

Results

Preliminary results showed a significant difference between the think-first and google-first memory tests suggesting that “googling” may lead to us not remembering information as well as when we must think about the answer first. However, data collection and analysis is still ongoing. Additionally, as expected, there was a significant difference between the testing of easy questions in comparison to hard questions with easy questions having higher correctness scores; data collection and analysis are still ongoing. 

Discussion

As suggested by past studies, it appears that when tested after a period of time, participants perform worse on the memory test when they were originally asked to “google” the answers to the given questions. If this pattern is found at a statistically significant level it may suggest that the very act of “googling” actually makes it more likely that a person will forget the fact that they learned through “googling”. Generalizing this to a larger scale, this could have implications to the way that people approach quick searches. Rather than relying on the immediate and easy to access information, people could be instructed to try and process the information that they are searching before and while they search for it. Moreover, in academic environments this could have implications with the way in which teachers teach students to find information. If the information that students are learning through “googling” is really just being lost in a short amount of time, this may lead teachers to lead students through other ways of acquiring information. Additionally, other study materials and methods could be used in the classroom in order to force students to process the information that they may be mindlessly quick searching for. A greater emphasis could also be placed on research questions that are based on understanding information as opposed to remembering detailed facts. Through a deeper understanding of material, it is possible that these quick searches could be more effective due to higher expertise in the subject. However, everything discussed above is speculative and further research and data analysis is needed to support the above arguments for the effects of quick searches on memory of facts. 

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.

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