When was the last time you memorised a phone number? For most of us, thanks to the ‘smart device age’ we live in, the answer is ‘eons ago!” from allowing us to telecommute, remotely turning on the car’s ignition to regulating room temperatures with a single click, technological advancements have made our lives simpler than ever. Yet, recent research has revealed that this technological pervasiveness has started to adversely affect our memories.
According to Erik Fransen, a computer science professor at Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, every internet browsing sessions that lasts for more than 30 minutes at a stretch,reduces the brain’s ability to file away information that can be retrieved later. This is because we are exposed to massive amounts of varied information in such a short time that one brain is unable to read, process, understand and store information.
Clive Thompson, author of Smarter Than You Think, explains that until a few years ago the internet was used as a functional tool to help increase productivity and efficiency at work; now it has taken on the role of acting as our ‘external memory drive’.
That fact that almost all search engines have a mobile app has further people know that the answer to every question can be easily ‘Googled’, they do not make the effort to remember. When the brain’s memory centres are allowed to remain idle for extended durations, similar to an unused car, their health begins to deteriorate, and can eventually lead to permanent loss of memory function.
Psychologists believe this is one of the major reasons why the incidence of cognitive decline and memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, has escalated in the last five years. Even more alarming is the fact that while memory-relate diseases tended to affect people in their 50s and 60s, today even teenagers are being afflicted by it.
By Dr Waqar Saeed. The writer is a general physician.