What relationship does technology have with memory?

‘Brainrot’ has been named the Oxford Word of the Year and it describes the decay of one’s mental state due to the overconsumption of (typically trivial) digital content. It seems a collective fear of AI’s effect on cognitive behaviour is inevitable – especially with its impact on memory.

Recent winning words, such as the previous year’s ‘rizz’, demonstrate the evolution of our increasingly virtual lives, and the dangers that exist alongside them. Is this fear truly justified or is it simply fear-mongering based on generalisations? Is technology actually making us stupid?

Elizabeth Marsh of Duke University, North Carolina, notes that statements like ‘Google is making us stupid’, are “overstatements”. So, what are the intricacies within this debate?

As technology allows information to be supplied almost instantaneously, there is the risk of people alleviating the stress of information retention from their own memory storages too much and too often, replacing our cognitive ability to think and recall data

An intersection between technology and memory is the concept of ‘transactive memory’. Initially coined by Wegner in the 1980s, transactive memory alleviates the burden of memory retention and information recall. In essence, our brains utilise an external storage aid, such as people, to lessen the load on the brain where we share the information we retrieve from our memory. Applied to a modern context, this alleged third party can take the form of the internet or other technological tools such as smartphones or computers.

As technology allows information to be supplied almost instantaneously, there is the risk of people alleviating the stress of information retention from their own memory storages too much and too often, replacing our cognitive ability to think and recall data.

Adrian Ward, a psychologist at the University of Texas, Austin, explains this further:“Sometimes searching Google is faster than searching your own mind.” This is to say, the convenience of modern daily technological tools may provoke a transition in the manner in which we process, acquire, store, and recall information from the outside world. The digital era has made us reliant on external memory aids rather than a master at optimising their potential.

While it may be true that ‘cognitive offloading’ can impair memory retention, it is important to consider whether or not this impairment is truly detrimental to our cognitive wellbeing or if, in reality, there exist more dire conclusions. Yes, one may struggle to retain information that is readily accessible elsewhere, but is this the be-all and end-all? Could there be positive aspects of this behaviour?

A 2011 study examined if the use of a GPS had any effect on one’s ability to navigate while driving, testing variables such as the time taken to follow the route and scene recognition accuracy to establish ‘wayfinding competence’. Fifty American university students, split into two groups (GPS and non-GPS) and were tasked with following a route twice. Those in the first group (GPS) used an acoustic turn-by-turn navigation device for the first journey only, and the second group (non-GPS) had no device to help for either of their journeys.

The researchers discovered that there was a decrease in scene recognition from the participants following a GPS, potentially due to ‘inattention blindness’, which arises when participants fail to pay enough attention to their environment to truly ‘see’ it. They found that using a GPS hinders people’s initial acquisition of environmental features from memory and thus results in more difficulty in retrieving it later, suggesting that over-reliance on technology can have real-life implications in everyday functioning.

Interestingly though, the study also demonstrated that utilising digital guidance can be beneficial for the efficiency of travel, so completely disregarding the positive impact of technology would be counterintuitive.

Further research incorporated interactive versions of GPS devices with added landmark descriptions in their instructions. Their use indicated an increased environmental awareness and recognition, as opposed to way-finding with the basic tool.

While reliance on tools may be partly beneficial, negative consequences impair our human functioning, replacing human cognition with machine intelligence

Another study found that highlighting the location and position of specific landmarks improves way-finding ability. As such, perhaps it is the manner in which we use technology which hinders our memory and behaviour. Applying tools effectively may enhance skills, such as scene recognition, and help eliminate (or at least reduce), the negative implications of technology on cognitive function.

On the other hand, a study published in 2020 showed that consistent use of GPS devices was directly associated with a decline in hippocampal-dependent spatial memory. In the initial examination, there was evidence to suggest that the use of GPS hindered the spatial memory of a driver when they were forced to drive without a navigation device. While reliance on tools may be partly beneficial, negative consequences impair our human functioning, replacing human cognition with machine intelligence.

Despite the known threat of over-reliance on technology, our society continues to move towards this danger, becoming more digital and less analogue. Some researchers claim that it “makes adaptive sense,” to allow the brain to freely carry out other tasks without the burden of unnecessary information. With technology, the brain’s limited storage can be maximised to optimise human ability.

The University of California conducted an experiment on students where they were asked to memorise lists of words on a document. They found that if the students had ‘saved’ the file, they were more likely to be able to memorise words in a second file. The study indicates that the act of ‘saving’ the words gave participants enhanced memory storage, leveraging the saved document as an external memory aid. Once again, we must question the limit of the perceived ‘enhancements’ provided by technology.

Having considered the cognitive risks associated with an over-reliance on digital devices, it is imperative to note that the solution is not as simple as removing all technology from our lives – the modern world does not allow for this resolution

Another study explored the relationship between participants’ ability to answer trivia questions with and without Google, stating that participants who searched for the answers sometimes believed they had the information themselves. This is to say, “searching for answers, it seemed, didn’t remind them of their ignorance; it made them think that the online knowledge had been theirs all along.”

Having considered the cognitive risks associated with an over-reliance on digital devices, it is imperative to note that the solution is not as simple as removing all technology from our lives – the modern world does not allow for this resolution.

Smartphones and other forms of technology are omnipresent in our current environment and eliminating their use completely would not be an effective conclusion. The aim of reaching an adequate balance between technology and human cognition is a more plausible goal to reach for, and arguably a necessary one, to prevent the technology from irreversibly damaging human cognitive function. But how can this equilibrium be achieved?

Amalia Călinescu’s account on the Impact of Technology on Memory details recommendations to “foster a harmonious integration of digital tools into daily life while safeguarding the wellbeing of cognitive processes and memory.” The article notes various elements to consider when using digitally enhanced tools in our daily lives, such as our mind’s susceptibility to over reliance.

As such, she advises us to “engage with digital technologies mindfully,” and to be aware of the way in which we use certain tools and for how long we use them. This allows us to develop our decision-making as we become more informed of the potential threats of consistently relying on external digital tools.

The integration of technological devices in education – explicitly as a manner of enhancing instead of replacing human cognition – can improve our digital literacy as we develop the necessary skills to combat threats at an early stage

While this does not cure us of risk, it potentially reduces the impact of technology on our own cognitive ability. In understanding what the dangers are, we enhance our digital literacy and gain greater autonomy. Digital literacy encourages the ability to navigate the digital world without compromising the integrity of our own cognitive processes and may be learned through a heightened awareness of the implications of digital tools.

Călinescu explains that the integration of technological devices in education – explicitly as a manner of enhancing instead of replacing human cognition – can improve our digital literacy as we develop the necessary skills to combat threats at an early stage.

The sentiment is controversial, considering the present threat of AI in education, especially at higher levels such as university where students utilise chatbots to essentially carry out the work for them.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are the websites like ChatGPT which incorporate AI. LLMs present the bigger worry for many academics, as they ensure “the ultimate offloading”. AI tools are able to falsify information and present it convincingly in a manner that appears safe, such as search engines like Google.

The Language Models become unreliable external stores of memory due to the erroneous information they produce, making critical thinking skills such as identifying false data and writing assignments obsolete. As such, LLMs pose the greatest risk to human cognitive ability, as they reduce the need for these analytical skills completely. If a machine can do it, why should we need to? Even so, the true dangers of AI are yet completely understood.

The inclusion of chatbots and the increasing presence of tools such as GoogleAI and ChatGPT are both relatively recent and their influence is spreading at an incredibly fast rate. In the end, memory and technology will always intersect within the context of our increasingly digital world. It is up to us as individuals to assess the cognitive benefits and detrimental effects technology can have on our ability to acquire, process, store, and recall information. If we master these tools for the enhancement of cognition, we can reduce our fears. Nevertheless, it is crucial to remain aware of the negative impacts of technology, continuously reminding ourselves that machine learning is not a replacement for human cognition.

If we rely on our devices completely, we will see deficits in our own abilities. If used as an external aid to strengthen the skills we already possess, however, our fears will remain distant, saving ourselves from a real-life problem we cannot come back from.