digital amnesia essay

Digital amnesia

Are we handing our memories over to our handhelds.

Ariel Evans relies on her cellphone to remember phone numbers and important dates.   Credit: Rachel Garman / Penn State . Creative Commons

July 5, 2016

By Julie Eble

Many people don’t worry about remembering phone numbers, special birthdays or anniversaries anymore; after all, they’re just a cellphone away.  This phenomenon has been coined “digital amnesia” — the experience of forgetting information you trust a digital device to store and remember for you.Although digital amnesia has not been recognized scientifically yet, cognitive scientists agree that relying less on the mind builds fewer neuron connections in the brain, stagnating its development.But for Ariel Evans, her smartphone is her lifeline. A Penn State senior majoring in English with a minor in labor and employment relations, Evans admits she is dependent on her cellphone and uses it to remember her work and class schedules, as well as phone numbers of family and friends. She even uses a birthday reminder app that notifies her of upcoming birthdays from her contact list.“I got so busy with school this year, I forgot my dad’s birthday. If I didn’t have my phone, I’d be lost,” said Evans.So could this dependence on digital devices be dangerous?“Without a doubt technology has transformed our lives and has also seemingly altered the way our brains work,” said Nancy Dennis, Penn State associate professor of psychology. “However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”According to Dennis, the reliance on handheld devices to store and remember such information as phone numbers, dates and passwords is helping by freeing the brain to enable it to hold more lasting memories, engage in analytical thinking and partake in the creative process.Mike McNeese, former senior associate dean of Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology and director of the Multi-disciplinary Initiatives and Naturalistic Decision Systems Lab , agrees that creating a solid lasting memory trace is more than just memorizing phone numbers. 

“In today’s society, where we have Twitter, Facebook and other social networking technologies, memory becomes a social cognitive phenomena in which our technological devices allow us to be more highly coupled with friends, family and colleagues,” said McNeese. “As a result, we engage information processing in ways we didn’t have before the advent of cellphones. Through interaction with others, we exercise our brains and those memories have more meaning and become constructed and encoded in our minds.”Additionally, some cognitive experts say that while there's no problem using Google to find answers to questions, it's a good idea to step back and reflect on the new information to help retain it.And when it comes to studying, Dennis recommends students practice retrieval, rather than reading, as a way to remember important points.“Most students read their course material over and over again to retain the information. By doing this, however, they’re not getting that deep, semantic organizational structure they need to create meaningful links to the knowledge base they already have,” said Dennis. “As a result, the information is easily forgotten come test time. One of the best ways to study information is to actually test yourself on it beforehand and try to recall, or retrieve, what it means.”In addition to creating meaningful links to memories, Dennis says the key to strengthening the mind is by learning new things.   “Focusing on social interactions and engaging in something novel will keep the brain stimulated and the mind sharp,” said Dennis.However, for Dennis, “novel” is the operative word when it comes to maximizing memory.“If you do crossword puzzles all the time, that’s not time spent learning something new,” she said. “Unfortunately, it just makes you really good at doing crossword puzzles.”Instead, Dennis suggests taking a dance class as an alternative to crossword puzzles. “It’s a win-win because now you’re moving around and being socially engaged at the same time,” she said.But if joining a dance class isn’t in the cards right now, don’t worry. It is probably more important to understand the long-term implications of digital amnesia and how to take steps to protect the information on your handheld device.“Through such security measures as incorporating strong passwords, keeping operating systems and apps up to date with the latest versions, and being careful of what’s downloaded, users will be able to secure and protect the information no longer stored in their minds,” said Paul Kletchka, system and network security analyst in Penn State’s Office of Information Security.So, even if you forget your dad’s birthday, at least your phone won’t.

For more stories about IT at Penn State, visit news.it.psu.edu .

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Do you know your best friend’s phone number? In the 1990s, I had my best friend’s phone number memorized, and I’m pretty sure I remembered it just now after thinking about it for a minute. But the phone numbers I use today? They don’t live in my head. They live on my phone.

The press loves to serve us alarming headlines about so-called digital amnesia and what our overreliance on computers and the Internet might be doing to our brain. A particularly egregious headline reads, “Remember how it felt to remember things?”, as if having a smartphone transformed all of us into Guy Pearce in the movie Memento , unable to form new memories.

When we cast aside the doom-mongering that warns of our devices making us dumber—or even worse, of technology giving us “digital dementia,” comparing Internet use with a head injury or the kind of cognitive decline seen in Alzheimer’s disease—we stumble upon two problems: a foundational study that doesn’t replicate very well and a scientific-sounding term coined by people who want to sell you something.

It's a reminder that, on important matters, it pays to read the primary literature.

Lest we forget where “digital amnesia” came from

The phrase “digital amnesia” means the experience of forgetting information that you believe a digital device, like a computer or smartphone, will store and remember for you. Why commit someone’s birthday to memory when your phone can send you a notification the day of?

It may sound like a scientific concept, but actually, “digital amnesia” is an example of bad PR. Imagine being the head of a vitamin supplement manufacturer who wants to increase revenue. You commission a survey, asking people if they take a multivitamin each day. The results? 70% say they do not, and of those who do, over half admit they sometimes forget to take it. You issue a press release with these findings, journalists jump all over it, and pretty soon, headlines are proclaiming that “Most Canadians do not take their vitamin pill” and “Even those who take vitamins often forget to do so. Are you one of them?” Readers become alarmed and head straight to their local drugstore. Sales of your vitamin supplements go up.

“Digital amnesia” was a term devised by the Kaspersky Lab, a cybersecurity firm, following a series of surveys they commissioned . In them, they asked people if they used their smartphone as a form of memory, if they thought they were more reliant on it than they were in the past, and, importantly, if they used antivirus software or if they created backups of their digital devices. It turns out that many people do rely on their devices to remember things for them, but would you believe that “58% use no antivirus software and only 29% back up precious information stored on their devices,” the Kaspersky Lab report informs us, “putting the majority of their memories in jeopardy should they suddenly become inaccessible due to loss, theft or cyberthreat?” Guess who sells cybersecurity solutions for home and business?

The story of “digital amnesia” is one of creating a problem by asking the right questions and positioning yourself as the solution.

That is not to say that there is no truth to the worry that we are offloading important information onto our thinking machines. In fact, before “digital amnesia” had even been dreamt up, a seminal paper had been published on what would later be christened “the Google effect,” a related phenomenon by which we forget something because we know we can Google it later.

That study, which made waves when it was published in 2011, has become a lesson in how difficult it is to do one of the most important aspects of research: trying to replicate results.

The replication devil is in the details

According to a science journalist who wrote about this paper when it was published , Betsy Sparrow had experienced something all-too familiar which prompted her research into what would become the Google effect. She was watching the 1944 movie Gaslight , which has now inspired the word “gaslighting,” which means to psychologically manipulate someone into questioning their own sanity. When Sparrow saw the actress playing the maid, she had one of those “oh, it’s that woman from… oh, what’s her name?” moments. She looked it up on her phone. It was Angela Lansbury, then 18 years old.

She went on to conduct four experiments into this phenomenon, and the results were published in this now-influential paper. The ways in which she and her team went about testing whether or not people turn to the Internet when asked to remember something may sound a bit weird when explained. Psychology studies can appear quite removed from reality, as researchers attempt to cast out all sorts of things that could influence the results in order to test a specific relationship between two variables in a laboratory setting. Sparrow and her colleagues didn’t have their participants watch Gaslight and attempt to name its actors without checking their phones. Rather, one experiment involved what is known as a Stroop task. Put simply, if I write down the name of a colour on a piece of paper, show it to you, and ask you to name it, you’ll be able to do it quickly (“Red!”). But if the name is printed in a different colour—say the name “Red” is printed in blue—you will experience a slight delay because your brain is drawn to the colour of the ink and it struggles a little bit with the mismatch. That’s a Stroop task.

The undergraduate students who participated in the first of Sparrow’s experiments went through a similar test. They were asked trivia questions of the sort that might make you wish you could Google the answers. Then, they were shown words printed in either blue or red and had to quickly press the key corresponding to that colour. When the word was related to computers (like “screen,” “Google,” or “browser”), they pressed the key a little bit slower than when the word had nothing to do with computers (like “Coca Cola,” “book,” or “television”). This made the scientists think that those trivia questions had made people long for access to a computer, and those computer-related words had captured their attention and caused a delay in the task of choosing the right colour. There were other experiments, to which I will return, that taken together led the researchers to conclude, based on this preliminary evidence, that the Internet had become a form of transactive memory. Like a husband turning to his wife when asked to remember a friend’s birthday, we turn to the Internet, Sparrow and colleagues argued, when we need to tap into our memory. We don’t remember the answer, but we remember where to find the answer.

Scientific findings are more reliable when they can be reproduced by an independent team, however, and this was just one study. Cue an international team of scientists who, in 2018, published the results of a massive endeavour : they had tried to replicate 21 experimental studies in the social sciences whose results had been published in the preeminent journals Science and Nature . They reached out to the researchers behind these studies to make sure they would follow their protocol to the letter. The team found a similar result for only 62% of the studies they tried to replicate, though the magnitude of the effect was on average only half of what had been originally reported. One of the studies that did not replicate was Sparrow’s first experiment.

You may think that the case is closed. Sparrow’s experiment could not be replicated, ergo her results were a fluke. But it unfortunately gets more complicated.

The team in charge of the replication was unable to reach Sparrow and her team to ensure they had every detail of the protocol right. Researchers have to describe their protocol in their papers, but often details are missing or the writing leads to ambiguity. When the replication team’s results were published, Sparrow pointed out that she had conducted her Stroop test slightly differently . Also, while her study was published in 2011, the tests were done in 2006. Some of the computer-related words she had used were “Altavista” and “Lycos,” search engines that early adopters of the Internet will faintly recognize. In 2018, the replication team should have used more relevant words. Two years later, a German team took Sparrow’s comments into account and also attempted to replicate her first experiment, and their results failed to show the famed Google effect .

But the Sparrow paper had also reported on three other experiments that had nothing to do with the Stroop test. Instead, participants had had to type trivia statements into a computer and had been asked to remember them. The researchers had toyed with whether the typed text was saved or erased by the computer, and whether participants knew in advance what would happen. The conclusions from these tests were that knowing that the computer will not save this information enhances your memory of it, and that when the information is saved, people may not remember the information word for word but they’ll remember in which folder it was saved. In 2021, researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz tried to replicate this part of Sparrow’s experiment , but they only found the same result when participants were first put through a practice run where they saw that the computer’s saving function was indeed reliable. The fly in the ointment, according to these researchers, is that there was no practice run in Sparrow’s study, so why was it necessary here to find the same result?

If you are sighing in despair, you understand the problem. Scientific research is messy and reliable answers don’t emerge from preliminary data. The study of exactly how our use of modern technology is influencing our memory and our thinking is still very much in its infancy, and it is hard for scientists to keep up with the pace at which our use of the Internet evolves. These laboratory experiments are far removed from our reality. We remember things we find interesting. A trivia statement like “the international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672,” which was used in Sparrow’s study, may not be seen as engrossing or useful enough to justify a slot in our brain’s memory bank in the first place. (A college student’s thesis did test for this in trying to replicate Sparrow’s findings and did not find that interest in a statement was important in remembering it, but the test was only done in 20 people.)

The use of our phone’s camera to capture an event we attend has also been the subject of scientific studies, and there is evidence that it may distract us from the smells and sounds and the overall experience . Then again, our own memories are not as reliable as we’d like to believe, and our ability to remember often degrades with age, so the ability to take photos and videos using a smartphone can be a boon.

Concerns over how we use modern technology are justified, but we shouldn’t veer into a moral panic. Some of our ancestors famously fretted over wax tablets and printing presses, and how these new-fangled technologies might ravage our memory. Even if the Google effect is common, it may be more of an adaptation than a devolution. Do we need to memorize telephone numbers? Probably not. Offloading our memory of trivialities onto computers can allow us to focus on things that matter.

When I watch a movie or television show, I often experience the “it’s that guy who was in that thing” effect. Instead of memorizing the name of every actor, I simply turn to the Internet Movie Database and within seconds I am reminded of who this actor is and where I saw him before. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

There may be genuine downsides to relying on technology to remember things for us, and more (and better) studies, as always, are welcomed, but the evidence simply isn’t in to justify media headlines that boldly assert that our smartphones are wreaking havoc on our memory.

Take-home message: - The term “digital amnesia” was coined not by scientists but by a cybersecurity firm that sells solutions to help protect the information we store digitally - Experiments described in a seminal paper on the way in which we turn to technology to remember things for us have failed to show the same results in the hands of other scientists, although the experiments were not identical - The effect that our reliance on technology has on our memory is still not clear, as the scientific research on this question is still in its infancy

@CrackedScience

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Effectiviology

The Google Effect and Digital Amnesia: How We Use Machines to Remember

The Google effect  and  digital amnesia  are two related psychological phenomena, which have to do with our tendency to forget information that is available online or stored digitally. For example, the Google effect and digital amnesia could cause someone to forget a certain piece of information, if they know they can find it later by searching the internet or their computer.

Because people are storing more and more of their information in digital formats, these phenomena are playing an increasingly large role in human cognition, so it’s important to understand them. As such, in the following article you will learn more about the Google effect and digital amnesia, understand why we experience them, and see how understanding them can benefit you in practice.

The Google effect

The  Google effect is a psychological phenomenon that represents people’s tendency to forget information that they can find online , particularly by using search engines such as Google. For example, the Google effect can cause someone to forget a certain keyboard shortcut that they use frequently, if they know that they can easily find it online with a quick search.

Digital amnesia

Digital amnesia is a psychological phenomenon that represents people’s tendency to forget information that is stored in a digitally accessible manner, such as on their computer or smartphone. For example, digital amnesia could cause people to immediately forget someone else’s phone number after hearing it, because they know that it’s stored on their phone.

The difference between the Google effect and digital amnesia

The terms ‘Google effect’ and ‘digital amnesia’ are generally used interchangeably, and are often assumed to refer to the same general phenomenon, though the term ‘Google effect’ is significantly more common.

However, it’s possible to differentiate between these two terms, if they are taken to refer to two distinct phenomena, with the ‘Google effect’ referring to our tendency to forget information that is available via public search engines, and with ‘digital amnesia’ referring to our tendency to forget information that is stored in a digital manner. For example, under these definitions, forgetting information that we’ve stored on our phone (e.g. the phone numbers of our contacts), would be seen as a form of digital amnesia, but not as occurring due to the Google effect, since this information is stored in a digital location, but is not accessible via search engines.

Furthermore, under this categorization scheme, it’s possible to view the Google effect as being a subset of digital amnesia. Specifically, if digital amnesia is viewed as the tendency to forget information that is stored digitally, regardless of whether it’s publically accessible or private, then the Google effect can be seen as a subset of digital amnesia, which occurs in cases where people forget information that is stored in a digital location which is accessible via search engines.

Causes of the Google effect and digital amnesia

We experience both the Google effect and digital amnesia in situations where we choose, either intentionally or unintentionally, to rely on external, digital storage in order to remember certain pieces of information, rather than on our own memory. There are two main reasons why we make that choice.

First, in many cases, we are better at remembering where information is stored and how to retrieve it than we are at remembering the information itself . Essentially, this means that, in many cases, relying on search engines and digital storage can provide us with better access to information than memorizing it ourself.

For example, one study on the topic  examined doctoral dissertations at MIT, and specifically how the way students cite sources changed over the years. The researchers found that as search engines and digital storage became more commonplace, students started relying more on their ability to remember where relevant information appears in scientific literature, and on their ability to retrieve this information, rather than on their ability to remember the information itself. This proved to be a more effective mode of work, as it helped the students reference more papers in their work, and reference papers published across a wider range of years than they were originally able to.

Second, relying on search engines and digital storage of information is often easier, faster, more efficient, and more convenient than relying on our own memory. Essentially, even in situations where we might be able to remember information well ourself, it can still be advantageous to rely on external tools to remember that information for us.

For example, while it’s possible to memorize the phone numbers of people that we meet as they give them to us, it’s often much easier and more convenient to simply rely on our phones to save those numbers for us. This also frees up our cognitive resources, so that we can dedicate them to other things, such as engaging in conversation, instead of using them to memorize this information.

The role of transactive memory

Transactive memory is a type of collective memory through which groups collaborate on the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

A transactive memory system consists of the individual memory systems of the members of the group, together with a set of knowledge-relevant transactive processes. Essentially, this means that a transactive memory system consists of a set of related individuals, each of which stores some knowledge that they and other group members can access. Furthermore, individuals also store  meta-memories , which are memories about the memories of others , which means that each member of the group is aware of where knowledge is stored within the group, and how they can access it.

Transactive memory is frequently used in various types of social groups , including among family members, friends, and coworkers. This type of memory is beneficial because it gives each person in the group access to more information than they could remember on their own, and allows each person to dedicate less cognitive resources to remembering this information than they would need to dedicate otherwise, since they know that someone else in the group has that information stored for them .

In the context of the Google effect and digital amnesia, digital storage of information can be seen as part of our transactive memory system. According to this view , the human mind can be conceptualized as being a part of a large network of transactive memory partners, which in this case consists of various digital sources that provide us with a way to store and access information that we don’t want to remember ourself. Essentially, this means that we rely on digital storage to serve as a way to store information, similarly to how we would rely on people that we share a transactive memory system with.

Note : there are some philosophical arguments against the idea that the internet is a part of our transactive memory. These arguments generally center around the fact that transactive memory is a feature of a distributed cognitive system between individuals, while the internet is  only as a tool that we use to access information. However, this distinction, along with other philosophical considerations which relate to the various views of digital-based ‘E-memory’, aren’t crucial from a practical perspective, as long as you understand the general way in which our reliance on digital methods of memory storage and retrieval can lead to the Google effect and digital amnesia.

Accounting for the Google effect and digital amnesia

As we saw so far, the Google effect and digital amnesia mean that you are predisposed to forget information that you know will be available to you online or on one of your digital devices.

In some cases, the tendency to rely on digital means to store information can be problematic. For example, this might be an issue in situations where it’s preferable to remember certain information yourself, for various reasons, such as because you need to have that information readily available when you don’t have access to digital devices, or because it’s information that you should be able to internalize and understand well.

Furthermore, there are additional issues associated with using digital means to find and store information.  One study , for example, found that while using the internet allows us to quickly discover new information, our ability to recall this information is worse than when we discover it through other sources, such as books. While this isn’t a problem in cases where you just need to know where to find the information, it can be an issue in cases where you need to remember the information yourself, such as if you’re studying for a test.

However, there are also situations where relying on digital means to store information can be beneficial, and there is nothing inherently wrong with intentionally forgetting things that you know will be accessible to your later in a digital manner. In general, most of us encounter huge amounts of valuable information each day, and strategically offloading parts of our memory onto digital devices , while relying on our ability to find information rather than on our ability to remember it,  frees up the cognitive resources necessary to process of all of this information, which allows us to utilize it more effectively.

Password managers are a good example of a situation where selective digital amnesia can be beneficial, since they allow us to easily and reliably remember a large number of strong, unique passwords, something that we would generally struggle to do otherwise.

Overall, there are situations where you will benefit more from relying on digital devices to store and retrieve information, and there are situations where you will benefit more from memorizing information yourself.  Therefore, when it comes to accounting for the Google effect and digital amnesia, the most important thing is to be aware of your tendency to forget information that is available via digital means, and to understand why you have this tendency.

Then, based on your knowledge of these phenomena, you should identify situations where relying on digital means would be the best way for you to remember something, and use those digital means accordingly. Furthermore, you should also identify situations where relying on digital means for information storage would cause more trouble than it’s worth, and make sure to memorize that information yourself instead.

Summary and conclusions

• The Google effect is a psychological phenomenon that represents people’s tendency to forget information that they can find online, particularly by using search engines such as Google.
• Digital amnesia is a psychological phenomenon that represents people’s tendency to forget information that is stored in a digitally accessible manner, such as on their computer or smartphone.
• We rely on the internet and on digital devices as external tools for storing and retrieving information, because we are generally better at remembering where information is stored and how to retrieve it than we are at remembering the information itself, and because in many cases, doing so can be easier, more efficient, and more convenient than relying on our own memory, while also freeing up our cognitive resources.
• Relying on digital means to store information can be beneficial in many cases, particularly when we do so intentionally and strategically; for example, it’s generally preferable to rely on our phone to store other people’s phone numbers, instead of memorizing those numbers ourself.
• Relying on digital memory can be problematic in some cases, such as when it prevents us from processing and internalizing information; for example, this might be an issue if instead of memorizing a certain simple term, we repeatedly look it up online each time we need it.

Other articles you may find interesting:

• Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy: Remember that Not Everything in the News Is True
• Handwriting vs. Typing: How to Choose the Best Method to Take Notes
• The Verbatim Effect: People Remember Gist Better Than Details

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Prevalence of digital amnesia, somatic symptoms and sleep disorders among youth during COVID-19 pandemic

Associated data.

Data associated with this study has been deposited at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11AIAkjpF2DUA31fO%209i8YFp0amKQ09YA/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104246682839958167367&rtpof=true&sd=true

The proliferation of COVID-19 radically altered people’s daily routines over the last two years, particularly among young. Closures of schools and colleges resulted in virtual learning that increased reliance on gadgets causing digital dependency among youth. The prevalence of digital amnesia, somatic symptoms and sleep disorders among youth during this pandemic require considerable attention since it has not been addressed widely.

Cross-sectional study was carried out among 326 youth aged between 18 to 25 years. Digital Amnesia Scale, Somatic Symptom Disorder-B Criteria Scale (SSD-12) and Sleep disorders Symptom Checklist (SDS-CL-17) were used to collect data from participants.

Significant positive relationship was found between digital amnesia, somatic symptoms and sleep disorders among youth. Youth differed significantly in their somatic symptoms based on demographic variables such as gender, family type and area of residence. Digital amnesia had significant impact on somatic symptoms through the mediation effect of insomnia and circadian rhythm dimensions of sleep disorders.

Productive use of digital devices would help youth reduce digital amnesia. Practicing digital break/digital detox could also help them improve their cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects, as well as their quality of sleep.

Digital amnesia, Google effect, Somatic symptoms, Sleep disorders, COVID-19, Youth

1. Introduction

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a respiratory pathogen with high communicability and pathogenicity ( World Health Organization, 2020a ; World Health Organization, 2020b ). COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2, a novel virus, which belongs to the Coronaviridae family of viruses ( Su et al., 2016 ). The local disease expanded globally, causing a pandemic that affected more than 200 countries. On March 11 th of 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic ( World Health Organization, 2020a ; World Health Organization, 2020b ). The COVID-19 epidemic is seriously affecting the nation, society, and people, having an impact on the business sector and the economy as well as people’s jobs, everyday lives, and academic pursuits ( Chen et al., 2020 ; Zhong et al., 2020 ). India is now the second-highest country affected by the pandemic after the USA with more than 9.4 million confirmed cases and more than 140,000 deaths ( Chhetri et al., 2021 ). Education is one of the many industries that this pandemic has impacted due to this pandemic ( UNESCO, 2020 ). Colleges and universities, among other educational institutions, were closed to students to prevent the spread of COVID-19, thereby obstructing regular educational activities. In India, the fourth phase of lockdown, which was announced or implemented, has had a devastating effect on over a million students. As a result, students from all over the world, including India, began reading and learning at home using digital materials instead of traditional face-to-face teaching method ( Jadhav et al., 2020 ). Although students' engagement with their virtual learning helps them in their academics, it could also result in over-reliance on digital devices, in turn to digital amnesia. Researchers investigated the effect of technology on youth, and coined the term ‘Google Effect’ ( Sparrow et al., 2011 ) whereas "Google effect" and "digital amnesia" can both be interchanged ( Lodha, 2019 ).

1.1. Digital amnesia

The term "Digital Amnesia," which was first used by Kaspersky Lab, 2015 , refers to the experience of forgetting information that individuals believe a digital gadget will store and recall for them. Digital amnesia and google effect are the results of individuals' dependence on the internet, often systematically considered in the context of an activity approach in experimental psychology ( Camerer et al., 2018 ; Friede, 2013 ; Molchanov et al., 2018 ). The over-reliance on the digital devices may negatively affect an individual’s memory that would raise the spectre of digital amnesia. Yale Tribune (2018) claimed that over-reliance on smartphones makes individuals believe that they serve as an alternative to individuals' memories. Apart from adverse effects to the memory, digital amnesia causes disruptive behaviour like a lack of focus, impatience, and increased aggression ( Lodha, 2019 ). Anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and panic attacks have also been associated with digital amnesia ( Lodha, 2019 ). These behavioural and psychological symptoms appeared in people who had either misplaced their smartphones, which contained a flood of their personal and professional information, or whose data had been stolen as a result of malicious third parties ( Bhargava, 2016 ).

Excessive use of technology might lead people to over-reliant on it and impair their capacity to recall things on their own. Even, Socrates was sceptical about technology of his time and warned against “the technology of writing things down” would cause forgetting ( Plato, 1925 ). Similar concerns might be heard in more recent cautions that an over-reliance on technology could result in "digital amnesia" ( Gilbert, 2019 ). Researchers looked into how people choose between using their memories and outside reminders and found that individuals utilize memory tools when they think they might otherwise forget ( Gilbert, 2015 ; Risko and Dunn, 2015 ). The degree of confidence that each individual has in their memory varies, and these variations produce stable biases regarding whether an individual prefers to utilize their own memory or an external tool ( Gilbert et al., 2019 ).

Smart phones are great and a wonderful technology where everyone should enjoy its benefits in a useful manner; otherwise it can lead to multiple health hazards including digital amnesia ( Rani and Roshan, 2020 ). Smartphones have become indispensable, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, and without smartphone, one feels incomplete. There has been a growth in smartphone use across a variety of demographics, especially among youth who are attached to their smartphones as a result of COVID-19’s social alienation ( Rani and Roshan, 2020 ).

1.2. Google effect

The "Google effect" is the tendency to forget information that can be easily be obtained online using search engines ( Kaspersky Labs and Opinion Matters, 2015 ). Sparrow et al. (2011) addressed the influence of google effect on how people remember, recall and retrieve information. Reliance on search engines for any information is a natural tendency in a society that is becoming more digital and linked. Instead of remembering the actual content, people frequently improve their transactive memory (remembering where to get information online). Every time someone successfully and conveniently retrieves information from external storage, the transactive memory is strengthened, and it is now more convenient to use external information storage instead of making room in one’s memory for such information. As such, digital devices and the internet serve as an external memory storage, an alternative for memorizing information ( Hassani et al., 2021 ). A study by the Kaspersky Lab, 2017 discovered that roughly 30% of people forget an online fact shortly after accessing it. Digital gadgets and the internet are used for remembering and disclosing information that can be easily obtained online.

1.3. Digital amnesia and somatic symptoms

There has been a significant surge in usage of digital devices due to online learning platforms since COVID-19 pandemic ( Strielkowski, 2020 ). Youth started using digital devices extensively to resume their studies through online, consequently resulting in digital dependency. Our ability to think, recall, pay attention, and control our emotions is being negatively impacted by our dependence on smartphones and other digital devices rather than being aided ( Morin, 2013 ). Digital dependency may have detrimental repercussions on a person’s development, including physical inactivity ( Griffiths et al., 2010 ), emotional instability ( Manganello and Taylor, 2009 ), sleep disorders, and impaired memory ( Dworak et al., 2007 ). Gunes (2020) reported that people played video games for two hours a day on the weekends, which is not only bad for their physical health ( Rosen et al., 2014 ) but also has effects on their social and emotional development ( Hu et al., 2020a , 2020b ; Mistry et al., 2007 ), cognitive growth ( Kumari and Ahuja, 2010 ), and attention span ( Swing et al., 2010 ). Digital dependency to an extent causes cognitive impairments ( Seki et al., 2019 ), emotional instability ( Xiuqin et al., 2010 ) and sleep disorders ( Salicetia, 2015 ).

1.4. Digital amnesia and sleep disorders

Digitalization is widespread and the most accessible approach to staying in touch with loved ones despite the social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, limitless utilization of these digital gadgets may further develop sleep disorders. Over-dependence on digital devices during the pandemic might cause sleep deprivation and multiple psychological problems. As a result of disruptions to sleep and decreased synaptic pruning, digital amnesia impairs the ability to develop and maintain new memories and hinders the ability to recall new information. It is reported that excessive use of smartphones during the day, increase the likelihood of sleep disorder ( Thomee et al., 2011 ). People are utilizing digital devices more than ever before which is causing sleep deprivation in the form of later bedtimes, shorter sleep durations, and longer sleep onset latency. The addiction to digital devices may affect the quality of sleep due to later bedtimes and shorter sleep durations. These adverse associations between excessive use of digital devices and sleep quality also include time displacement, sleep physiology, psychological stimulation based on media content, and the impact of light emitted from devices on circadian timing ( Arora et al., 2021 ).

The symbiotic living with digital devices has changed the way individuals think, learn, remember, and behave ( Kaspersky Labs and Opinion Matters, 2015 ) especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 lockdown has given a valid reason for people, particularly youth, to be locked to their digital devices such as smart phones. Smartphone is one thing that individuals never let beyond their sight; it is always available either in their hand or within a touchable distant. Youths are regularly active on various social media platforms to socialize with peers and others which may lead to digital dependency. With online learning becoming the norm as part of the digital transformations, they have all the more reasons to be glued to their phones that would obviously lead to digital dependency causing digital amnesia.

The COVID-19-specific risk factors for sleep disorders include anxiety about the disease, uncertainty about treatment and prevention strategies, and a negative attitude toward control measures ( Tasnim et al., 2020 ). The number of global deaths due to COVID-19 predicted more somatic complaints and worse sleep quality ( Simor et al., 2021 ). People’s mental health has significantly suffered as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated quarantine procedures ( Torales et al., 2020 ; Rossi et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, anxiety, depression, insomnia, somatic disorder, and irritability have been related to quarantine ( Hossain et al., 2020 ; DiGiovanni et al., 2004 ; Hawryluck et al., 2004 ). Hence, it is the need of hour to investigate the prevalence of digital amnesia, sleep disorders and somatic symptoms among youth.

2.1. Participants and study design

A descriptive survey was utilized to study the prevalence of digital amnesia, somatic symptoms, and sleep disorders among young population during the pandemic. The population of the study comprised of 327 youth aged 18 to 25, selected through incidental sampling. All the three scales were tested for normality. It was found that the Skewness and Kurtosis values are ranged between +2 and − 2 which showed that the data was normally distributed, hence parametric tests were utilized for statistical analysis.

2.2. Procedure

The researchers approached participants through WhatsApp after receiving permission from the college authorities. Participants were then given information about the study with informed consent, and interested people only were provided with questionnaires in the Google form. They were also given with the option to discontinue the study at any point of time, as well as assurance of confidentiality.

2.3. Digital amnesia scale

The researchers developed the digital amnesia scale to assess the level of digital amnesia. The items were derived from the case study conducted by Musa and Ishak (2020) . In the current study, the items (eg. “I trust my smartphones to store data that I cannot do with my own memory”) were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5. The overall score ranged between 1 and 50. In this study, the reliability of the scale was established using Cronbach alpha 0.71, indicating an acceptable level of internal consistency ( Tavakol and Dennick, 2011 ) with satisfactory validity.

2.4. Somatic Symptom Disorder-B Criteria Scale (SSD-12)

SSD-12 was developed by Toussaint et al. (2016) . It is used to assess cognitive, affective and behavioral aspects of somatic symptoms. It has 12 items with a score of 0–4. The overall score ranges from 0 to 48. Construct validity was examined using bivariate correlations between SSD-12, PHQ-15, GAD-7, and WI-7 by the authors ( Toussaint et al., 2016 ) and found to have satisfactory validity. The Cronbach alpha for cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions were 0.94, 0.71 and 0.92 respectively ( Toussaint et al., 2016 ).

2.5. Sleep disorders Symptom Checklist-17

It was developed by Klingman et al. (2017) . It is used to assess dimensions of sleep disorders such as insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, circadian rhythm, narcolepsy, and parasomnias. It has 17 items with a score of 0 (never) to 3 (frequently). The total score ranges from 0 to 51. The content validity was established by the authors and the Cronbach alpha for insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, circadian rhythm, restless legs syndrome, narcolepsy and parasomnias were 0.76, 0.69, 0.93, 0.80, 0.93 and 0.83 respectively ( Klingman et al., 2017 ).

2.6. Ethics

The Declaration of Helsinki was followed when conducting the study and approved by the local ethical committee. All participants provided their written informed consent.

A total of 327 youth participated in the online study. Among them 111 (34%) were boys and 216 (66%) were girls aged between 18 and 25 years (M = 22.12, SD = 5.36). Correlation matrix for study variables were given in Table 1 . The analysis showed that digital amnesia was positively correlated with somatic symptoms (0.304) and dimensions of sleep disorders such as insomnia (0.280), circadian rhythm (0.257), narcolepsy (0.230), obstructive sleep apnea (0.301), restless legs syndrome (0.238) and parasomnias (0.331).

Table 1

Correlation matrix for the study variables.

P < 0.01; SSD- Somatic Symptom Disorder; SD-Sleep disorders.

Table 2 shows the significant difference in somatic symptoms among youth on the basis of their gender, family type and area of residence. Somatic symptoms were significantly higher among boys than girls (16.78 vs 11.47). Students from joint families were at more risk of developing somatic symptoms than students from nuclear families (16.31 vs 11.95). Furthermore, students from urban area had a higher level of somatic symptoms compared to students from rural area (14.89 vs 11.90).

Table 2

Differences in somatic symptoms by demographic categories.

P < 0.05.

Structural equation modeling was carried out to analyse the model fit for somatic symptoms as outcome variable, incorporating the selected predictor factors. In the model, digital amnesia was considered as exogenous variable. Insomnia and circadian rhythm of sleep disorders were considered as mediators of digital amnesia and somatic symptoms. All the variables were analysed for satisfactory fit, and it was found that all of them were within the acceptable values: CFI = 0.997; GFI = 0.991; AGFI = 0.969; RMSEA = 0.040 and SRMR = 0.012. We pruned the model by deleting non-significant and weak factors to increase the model’s significance and overall fit ( Hooper et al., 2008 ). As such, we removed four factors from sleep disorders (Narcolepsy, Obstructive sleep apnea, Restless legs syndrome and Parasomnias). Table 3 represents the model fit and path analysis diagram is shown in Figure 1 .

Table 3

Model fit summary and structural models comparison (N = 326).

Structural equation modeling diagram for standardized path. Note: Solid lines represent significant path and dotted line represents non-significant path.

This model provided additional insight into the findings of correlation which suggested a causal and structural relationship among the variables. It is apparent from the model that the role of insomnia was stronger in predicting somatic symptoms (0.50) compared to digital amnesia (0.15) and circadian rhythm (0.08). Digital amnesia also showed a positive significant effect on insomnia (0.28) and circadian rhythm (0.26). Finally, the overall effect of digital amnesia on somatic symptoms through the mediation of insomnia and circadian rhythm was significant and positive (see Table 4 ).

Table 4

Effect of exogenous factors on somatic symptoms: direct, indirect and overall effect.

4. Discussion

The present study shed light on the prevalence of digital amnesia, somatic symptoms and sleep disorders among youth during COVID-19 pandemic. Youth having a higher level of digital amnesia were likely to develop more somatic symptoms as well as insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, circadian rhythm, restless legs syndrome, narcolepsy, and parasomnias of sleep disorders. Insomnia is a sleep disorder that causes difficulty falling and/or staying asleep. The condition can be short-term (acute) or long-term (chronic). Narcolepsy refers to the condition characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness interspersed with brief "attacks" of sleep during waking hours. This kind of sleep attacks can happen at any moment or during any activity, including potentially risky situations such as driving a car. Obstructive sleep apnea is the sudden stopping of breathing during sleeping that happens as a result of an obstruction in the upper airway or a failure of the respiratory centres in your brain to activate breathing. Parasomnias is a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal behaviour or physiological events while sleeping or in the transitional state between sleep and waking. Poor or inadequate sleep would have affected the individuals' cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects leading to somatic dysfunction.

The pandemic and ensuing lockdown resulted in a greater reliance on digital gadgets, which had a negative impact on health by disrupting sleep patterns and duration, as well as leading to the development of somatic symptoms ( Majumdar et al., 2020 ). Lam (2014) reported that over-reliance on gadgets can significantly impact the sleep-wake cycle, resulting in insomnia and other sleep difficulties which is consistent with the current findings. It was also noticed that youth with sleep problems have more somatic symptoms. People with insomnia tend to report a higher risk of developing somatic symptoms ( Wong et al., 2015 ). Huang et al. highlighted that sleep problems such as insomnia was closely related to somatic symptoms ( Huang et al., 2020 ) which is consistent with present finding.

A highly significant difference in somatic symptoms was found between boys and girls, which was higher among boys. Previous study has shown that somatic symptoms were more common in boys who were excessively reliant on gadgets ( Cao et al., 2011 ) which supports the present findings. A contradictory result was found by Cerutti et al. (2016) who reported that girls consistently scored higher than boys in somatic symptoms (M = 16.53, SD = 11.73 vs M = 11.98, SD = 10.34).

The structural equation modeling shed light on the effect of digital amnesia on somatic symptoms through the mediating role of insomnia and circadian rhythm of sleep disorders. Digital amnesia had a direct effect on both dimensions of sleep disorders (insomnia and circadian rhythm) as well as on somatic symptoms. Digital amnesia and insomnia demonstrated a positive and significant effect on somatic symptoms. Poor quality of sleep, difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep mediated the effect of digital amnesia on somatic symptoms were reported by youth participated in the present study which indicates that there was a strong indirect influence of digital amnesia on somatic symptoms through the mediation of insomnia and circadian rhythm than the direct influence. Specifically, the findings of the current study demonstrated that digital amnesia increased the risk of poor quality of sleep, which could increase the susceptibility to somatic symptoms. This type of mediation of sleep issues had been mentioned in earlier studies. For example, Cerutti et al. (2021) found that sleep disturbances partially mediated the association between over-reliance on digital devices and somatic symptoms. The quality of sleep has an impact on how people perceive the world, and getting disrupted sleep makes them pessimistic ( Jiang et al., 2017 ) which may increase their risk of developing somatic symptoms.

5. Conclusion

The utilization of digital devices are unavoidable in the modern world and it is completely based on the self-comfort of individuals. The usage of digital gadgets productively and efficiently has become the need of the hour, especially during this pandemic. Proper awareness program has to be organized for youth on the productive use of digital devices which would help them to overcome digital amnesia. Boys could be sensitized about the negative impact of digital amnesia, and utilize the digital devices only when it is necessary.

Youth should be encouraged to practice digital break everyday by disconnecting from the online world and focus on other healthy lifestyle such as doing physical activities, and adequate time with family. These health-promoting behaviours might help them diminish digital amnesia and improve their sleep quality. They can also achieve harmony between their online and offline activities by taking a brief break from their online platform. The better students understand their strengths and limitations of usage of digital devices, the better they will be able to master their gadgets. Moreover, having a practice of sleeping consistently would improve their cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects.

6. Benefits

The results of this study could be used to sensitize youth about the detrimental effects of digital amnesia on sleep quality as well as cognitive, emotional, and behavioural components. Youth could benefit from regular training programmes that educate them about digital amnesia and how to handle it efficiently. Additionally, youth could be educated to practise digital break for the improvement of their physical and psychological wellbeing.

7. Recommendations for practice

The digital amnesia scale could be expanded with different dimensions in the future study for different target populations. The role of digital amnesia can be further studied examining other variables such as digital intelligence, personality traits and emotional intelligence. The concept of digital amnesia could be explained in learning perspective such as reinforcement theories. Information processing approach of memory may also be incorporated with digital amnesia in future studies.

Declarations

Author contribution statement.

S. James Robert: Conceived and designed the experiments; Performed the experiments; Analyzed and interpreted the data; Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.

S. Kadhiravan: Conceived and designed the experiments; Analyzed and interpreted the data; Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Data availability statement

Declaration of interest’s statement.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

No additional information is available for this paper.

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Why the Digital World Is Making Us Forget Things

Analyzing the growing problem of digital-induced amnesia..

Posted February 16, 2024 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• Digital-induced amnesia is the inability to process, retain, or recall information due to digital stimuli.
• In an information-rich, time-poor world, we rely on machines to process information—maybe to our detriment.
• The loss of memory and retention is the cost we accept for the convenience of information at our fingertips.
• We must remember what we are losing, even as we make forgetting our standard way of being in the world.

Back in the old days—the 1980s—when I was a graduate student, the start-up whir of my Gateway computer focused my brain as I studied, wrote, and retained scientific information that would serve me in my future career in academia.

That type of concentration was possible throughout the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s—until the arrival of what Thomas Friedman described as our age of extreme acceleration in his book Thank You for Being Late (2016). After decades of computers becoming mobile, powerful, and ubiquitous, focus seems to be our most endangered mental commodity, leading to a collective memory loss, or what I call digital-induced amnesia, the inability to process, retain, or recall information due to chronic over consumption of digital stimuli. As our world becomes ever more information-rich and time-poor, our inability to retain and analyze that information for ourselves has us relying on machines—potentially to our detriment.

The Way Things Were

When I started my academic career, I understood that command of information and deep knowledge of my field was paramount to my success. I dutifully read and filed away mounds of scientific journal articles into manila folders inserted into pea-soup green file folders that would hang suspended on metal rods in the filing cabinet. Eventually, I would spice things up with folders of different colors.

To meticulously maintain command of increasing amounts of information, every paper was placed in a folder and every folder in a category. Categories were assigned main numbers, and folders within categories got a decimal point added to the main number to give it a unique identifier. If I read a new article on injection drug use among adolescents, it was assigned the file number 600.007, 600 for the category “adolescents,” and 007 was the next available number after paper 600.006 on adolescents and smoking . The system legend was kept in a three-ring loose-leaf binder. Until recently, I knew all of the category numbers by memory. I was a blast at parties, I’m sure.

At the time, I believed—maybe a little smugly—that this system gave me a competitive edge as a scholar, scientist, and expert, and I was unfailing in my filing discipline. But gradually, and then seemingly all at once, the world changed around me, file folders be damned. My efforts to migrate my file folder system into this exponentially expanding digital world quickly fell apart.

Losing Our “Human Hard Drives”

At the same time, many people seemingly welcomed the ability to turn their memories and the contents of their “human hard drives” over to a machine. It freed up their mental capacities for higher-order creative thinking . Data processing steps and quantitative analyses now could produce results without a human touch. But I found that threatening to my very identity as a scientist who needed to stay on top of the field.

Now I recognize that they were right and I was wrong—human memory skills no longer are the asset they once were. Most technology analysts agree that changed in 2007 when the iPhone entered our pockets and transformed our relationship with information—it became more readily available and much more voluminous.

James Lang observes in his book, Distracted (2020), distractedness is the norm among American college students, and my students in the classroom and the lab at George Mason University sometimes tell me they can’t remember the sentences they just read. Not being able to shift from the sympathetic (reacting) to the parasympathetic (contemplating) parts of our brain long enough to retain information can leave one anxious , agitated, and without the secure feeling of being knowledgeable.

I consider these to be symptoms of the widespread problem of digital-induced amnesia.

What It Means to Rely on Machines

T.S. Elliot once asked, “Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” That is an apt question that encapsulates what we are missing in our distracted digital age. Without the learned ability to acquire knowledge by commanding, synthesizing, and retaining information, our critical thinking skills are only as good as the machines we depend on.

It isn’t tragic that I no longer need to meticulously hand-file my articles and that I can search whatever pops into my head by effortlessly typing it into a search field. But it contributes to what Cal Newport describes in his book A World Without Email (2021) as the hyperactive hive mind. Our brains serve as human routers, receiving and transmitting data, day in and day out, as we search, find, forget, and repeat. It is a radically different set of behaviors from reading, contemplating, critiquing, synthesizing, physically filing, and ultimately retaining enduring knowledge.

Perhaps the loss of memory and retention at any age is the price we have accepted for the conveniences and instant rewards of fingertip information. Perhaps accessing it and knowing it for the moment is all that most people actually want. Some futurists foresee that the notion of lost human capacity is all short-term and that our brains will become more machine-like in time as we adapt to the constant conditioning of the thousands of digital acts we each perform every day.

If that is the case, we need to remember what we are losing even as we make forgetting our standard way of being in the world.

Melissa J. Perry, Sc.D., is the Dean of the College of Public Health at George Mason University.

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'Digital Amnesia' on The Rise as We Outsource Our Memory to The Web

As anybody who can remember the world before the Internet age will tell you, finding out information about pretty much anything these days is a hell of a lot easier than it used to be. 

But all of the convenience afforded by digital technologies and their capability to instantaneously provide us with answers could be taking a terrible toll on our own natural abilities to memorise and recall things, according to a new study by software firm Kaspersky Lab.

'Digital amnesia', which the researchers define as forgetting information that we trust to digital devices to store and remember on our behalf, appears to be a problem for young and old alike, with 91.2 percent of respondents to a US survey indicating they "use the Internet as an online extension of their brain".

What's worse, our reliance on the all-seeing, all-knowing Internet is making us lazy too: approximately 50 percent of consumers surveyed said they would turn to the Internet before even trying to remember a particular fact, and more than one in four people are happy to instantly forget something gleaned from an online result as soon as they've made use of it.

Of course, not every little thing we have cause to Google is a precious memory worth preserving forever, but even so, it's clear the culture of instant search engine gratification is effectively training our brains to treat all sorts of information like some kind of disposable snack. And the ramifications could potentially be serious.

"Past research has repeatedly demonstrated that actively recalling information is a very efficient way to create a permanent memory. In contrast, passively repeating information (eg. by repeatedly looking it up on the Internet) does not create a solid, lasting memory trace in the same way," said Maria Wimber of the University of Birmingham in the UK.

"Based on this research, it can be argued that the trend to look up information before even trying to recall it prevents the build-up of long-term memories, and thus makes us process information merely on a shallow, moment-to-moment basis."

Not that the news is all negative. Our ability to forget inconsequential factoids is actually a way for our brains to optimise the recollection of things that we really think are important.

"Even in healthy young people, research shows that being able to forget currently irrelevant or outdated information makes us more efficient at encoding new information," Wimber says .

But it's a cautionary reminder to at least think a little more about the way we seek out and use the information found online. If stuff's not at all important, why do we so badly feel the need to Google it?

• DOI: 10.30877/IJMH.6.1.2019.18-22
• Corpus ID: 191796266

Digital Amnesia: are we headed towards another amnesia

• Published in Indian Journal of Mental… 8 February 2019
• Indian Journal of Mental Health

2 Citations

The impact of digital technologies on memory and memory studies, prevalence of digital amnesia, somatic symptoms and sleep disorders among youth during covid-19 pandemic, 8 references, google effects on memory: cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips.

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Author Correction: Retrieval induces adaptive forgetting of competing memories via cortical pattern suppression

Helping people to manage and share their digital information: a role for public libraries, taking care of digital dementia, related papers.

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Digital Amnesia

What is digital amnesia.

Imagine this: You watch a number, it flashes on the screen for a second, and then you reach for your phone to save it because you know you’ll forget. That’s Digital Amnesia in a nutshell. Digital Amnesia, which some people call the Google effect, happens when we trust our phones, computers, and the internet to remember information for us. It’s like we’ve got all this knowledge at the tip of our fingers, so our brains go, “Why bother holding onto it?” The problem is, our memory muscles get weak because we’re not using them to remember things.

You experience Digital Amnesia when you automatically turn to the internet for answers to your questions instead of using your memory. Simple stuff—like birthdays, recipes, or historical facts—can slip from your brain because you’re used to just looking it up online. That means, without your digital devices, you could end up feeling pretty lost.

How Does Digital Amnesia Affect Us?

Our brains get a bit lazy when we use technology to remember stuff for us. It’s like if you only rode your bike with training wheels and never took them off; you might never really learn to balance, right? Here are some ways how forgetting to use our memory affects our daily lives:

• Forgetting important dates: When your phone reminds you of birthdays or anniversaries, you might not make the effort to remember them on your own, thinking you don’t need to because your phone’s got your back.
• Relying on GPS: If you always let a GPS tell you where to turn, you don’t get to practice finding your way around. One day, if your GPS isn’t working, you might get lost even in places that are somewhat familiar.
• Not remembering phone numbers: Since everything’s saved in your phone, you don’t try to keep phone numbers in your head. But what if you need to call your best friend and your phone’s run out of battery?
• Failing at trivia: If someone asks you questions about general knowledge, you might come up short because you’re used to searching online for answers, not storing them in your brain.

Take a typical school project scenario: if you’re researching a topic for homework, and you always look up the details online instead of learning about them, later, when someone asks you about it, you won’t remember a thing unless you’ve got your device in hand. This is exactly what happens when Digital Amnesia kicks in.

Dealing with Digital Amnesia

It’s like your brain has become a muscle that needs a workout because of how much you’ve been leaning on tech. Here are some tips to exercise your memory:

• Memorize key information: Make it a goal to remember critical things, such as the phone number of a family member, without peeping at your phone.
• Use mnemonic devices: These are cool tricks, like making up a song or an acronym, to help lock in memories.
• Take breaks from digital devices: Go screen-free sometimes. Read a real book, do puzzles, or play memory card games—anything that gets your brain working in a different way.
• Write things down: By writing notes or journaling, you can help your mind hold onto the things you’re learning.
• Teach others: When you explain something to someone else, it can help stamp it better in your own memory.

Related Biases and Concepts

Alongside Digital Amnesia, other ideas and habits can mess with our memory. Here’s a peek at some of them:

• Overconfidence in search engines: When we think everything on the internet is correct without double-checking, we can end up believing false stuff.
• Information overload: If we’re swamped with too much info, we can struggle to keep straight what’s actually important.
• Decision fatigue: Letting gadgets make too many of our choices can wear us out and make it harder for us to decide on anything ourselves.

Debates and Controversies

Digital Amnesia is a hot topic. Some brain experts think it just means we’re learning new ways to store information, using technology as a sort of spare brain. Others are afraid that relying on gadgets could make our own memory weaker. Plus, there’s a debate about whether the internet is turning us into super-smart people who can find out anything in seconds or if it’s making us lazier about learning things thoroughly. These conversations are far from over, especially as we weave technology tighter into our lives.

Prevention and Improvement

Staying sharp against Digital Amnesia means making sure we’re keeping our minds in good shape. Try to mix in activities that give your memory and learning abilities a workout. Read in-depth, pick up a new hobby, keep fit with exercise, get good sleep, and maybe even try meditating. All these things can boost your brainpower.

The Role of Education

In the battle against Digital Amnesia, education is super powerful. If you’re a teacher or a parent, you can help by getting kids to figure things out on their own and memorize essential info. That’s better than just letting them know how to Google something. Encouraging good habits like keeping study notes and truly understanding stuff, instead of copy-pasting from websites, will also help them build strong memories.

The Impact of Digital Amnesia on Society

Digital Amnesia isn’t just about individuals; it ripples through society. In the workplace, for example, if everyone’s leaning on tech for answers, what happens if the tech fails? It could mean less creative problem-solving. And when we keep all our sensitive info in digital form, if there’s a security breach, we could be in trouble. While technology’s convenience is great, it’s also critical to think about how we use it and the possible risks.

In our digital age, Digital Amnesia is a real thing to watch out for. By knowing what it is and how to handle it, we can keep our brains perky and ready for action, even with all our gadgets and the internet at our fingertips. Striking a balance between technology use and memory-boosting habits is the trick to keeping our noggins nimble in the face of this 21st-century challenge.

The development and validation of digital amnesia scale

• Published: 29 February 2024
• Volume 43 , pages 19594–19603, ( 2024 )

Cite this article

• S. James Robert   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8923-3326 1 ,
• S. Kadhiravan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2108-128X 2 &
• Dean McKay   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1158-5043 3  

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The usage of digital devices has increased rapidly in recent times due to the expansion of online learning platforms, leading to greater reliance on them. As a result, people forget simple information, dates, and appointments that might lead to digital amnesia. Hence, we aimed to develop and validate a digital amnesia scale (DAS). The study was carried out in two studies. In the first study, we collected data from 616 college students to examine the factor structure of the model and its underlying dimensions for a large pool of items. These analyses showed that the scale formed a three-dimensional structure: digital distraction, digital dependency, and digital detox. In the second study, we collected data from 383 college students to confirm the three-factor structure of the DAS. A satisfactory level of reliability was demonstrated by McDonald’s ω value for the dimensions. The test–retest reliability was found to be 0.76. The DAS had satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity. This scale could be useful for both researchers and educators to assess digital amnesia among college students.

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Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bangalore, Karnataka, 560060, India

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S. James Robert: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Validation, Visualization. S. Kadhiravan: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Investigation, Supervision, Resources, Research administration. Dean McKay: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Investigation, Supervision, Research administration.

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Robert, S.J., Kadhiravan, S. & McKay, D. The development and validation of digital amnesia scale. Curr Psychol 43 , 19594–19603 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05757-4

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Digital Amnesia

Focusing on the vulnerability of digital data, Digital Amnesia ponders the sustainability of modern artifacts that have no material state. Notable archivists share their perspectives on the Digital Age and whether it poses great promise or threat to the longevity of digital information and our collective memory.

Of the many quirky and amicable characters interviewed throughout the film, one of the most notable is Brewster Kahle, the passionate and energized founder of Internet Archive , whose mission is to preserve the Internet itself. Kahle explains his organization's purpose, highlighting the Wayback Machine website where users can access snapshots of pages long defunct.

Though the Archive exists primarily in the digital realm, Kahle guides us through the Archive's physical headquarters, cautioning viewers that without a reminder of our past we're destined to live in "an Orwellian state of the constant present." Kahle's affable sense of sentimentality is especially evident when he reveals a room populated by honorary statues built to resemble his long-term employees and pioneers of the Internet.

Dr. Ismail Serageldin, director of the Library of Alexandria, bares a similar sentimental side during his travels to Amsterdam, where he intends to rescue a vast collection of books on the verge of destruction. As he sits in a room lined with strikingly barren shelves, he proclaims books should be honored and respected as "living pieces of memories."

Alexander Rose, director of The Long Now, explains that the ephemeral nature of digital data combined with the rapid-pace obsolescence of recording technology guarantee a loss of material unmatched by previous methods of preservation. He later introduces the concept of the 10,000-year clock, a project run by The Long Now, as a symbol of "long-term thinking." Designed to contrast the lighting pace of the modern attention span, the gargantuan mechanical clock is set to tick once a year for ten thousand years.

A thoughtful film with a cautionary angle, Digital Amnesia grants viewers insight into the role of the archivist in perpetuating information across time, profiling just some of the people working to ensure current generations leave their mark in history, and that future generations may benefit from the lessons learned.

More great documentaries

For some of us who have books, where can we donate them? I have 3 or 4 full encyclopedias plus many other loose books literature... Where can I send them?

This is a remarkable question. Are we worth remembering?

Again I write. I hope someone will get in touch with me so that I can send all the books I have. Please! I also love books and do not wish to see them disappear. Am a retired university professor.

I had assumed that this was being done by universities, etc. I have several complete sets of encyclopedias and many other books in various countries and do not know what to do with them, No one wants them. How can I ge them to the Alexandria Library?

Hmm, in the first minute they start with stating that hard drivers only last for 5 years? Really? Where is the research behind that statement? I for one have disks from 15y ago that are still working without issues and I don't expect them to fail any minute now either...

That made me a bit sceptical for the rest of the movie...

Loved it. I've joined Archive Team!

It is best for us to preserve the historical libraries of all publications. The governments are broke and possibly, even as Cass stated, there's "a big conspiracy to dumb down the population".

It is up to us to bound together our heads to bound, republish, archive, and preserve.

Makes you wonder if it's a big conspiracy to dumb down the population... I mean it's only a matter of time before our magnetosphere completely dissolves and a solar EMP hits....

so we loose a bunch of old crap watever we have cable tv and memes who caers these gise are loosers

This is a dutch series, every sunday they come out with the best documentaries! if you guys wanna check the rest: they have all of their doc's available in english, like the one above. Greetingz Feyenoord Rotterdam!

A remnant of something needed in a society lost in the immediate!

Saving books just because they exist is a very inefficient solution to a humanly-defined problem. Just as Mother Nature "unfairly" discards billions of creatures as key to her existential balancing act, so we humans discard most of our creations and in so doing, refrain from drowning the world in dead redundancy.

Just being born doesn't make an entity, book or human, societally valuable. Why not redefine the "savers" into a worldwide volunteer army of literary evaluators, each perusing one by one the books they come in contact with. Such books could be stamped with a special insignia and sent free of charge to a repository. Society should be saving quality, not quantity.

Wow! A fascinating and heartwarming documentary. One can see how the World could be with more people like those wanting to preserve history instead of decimating it.

Interesting

Well good to know my old yahoo "Geocities" site may still be around.

Good doc, broken down nicely by those below

Recent studies have shown people have upper limits on memory. It makes sense that we would. I wonder if society(s) doesn’t also have them. We often seem resistant to change, because we have ideas ingrained, that are holding us back from such- as people, and as a society. It could well be, that it’s important that we don’t/haven't fully retained it all. Of course, I’d like to know more of the history we’ve lost (obsessively even lol). What society wants, isn’t always what’s best for it. But, as our capacity increases, maybe we can have our cake, and eat it too, who knows. There would be pros and cons, it's just an alt view; that I’d like to elaborate on, but won’t lol. But, without a doubt, I'm against google locking up the domain, and monopolizing info.

Jason Scott [BBS, and Get Lamp documentary filmmaker] in a top hat?! Respect! There are some important, easy to grasp, potentially devastating side effects to our bigger, faster, technological society. This film shows somewhat of the lighter side of the issues and what some altruistic folks are attempting to about it. All very nice.

"Google and the World Brain" is a great accompaniment to this. It tells a similar, great story about the darker, corporate mindset to hoovering up this kind of data. Far more shocking and revealing, but together these two films make for a more balanced perspective surrounding our so-called "technological progress".

An offbeat and good doc focusing primarily on the loss of info as so much data is no longer printed - and much of the data that is put online is soon deleted never to be seen again. Also as mentioned in the intro a key enterprise that is working to save this otherwise lost forever data is Internet Archive certainly worthy of a visit.