The Google effect: definition, examples and practical tips

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Introduction
Just "googling" something has become so normal that it was included as a verb in the dictionary in 2006. But constant googling can affect the brain. Why do we forget the information we just looked up? And why is this so important for entrepreneurs to know?

What is the Google effect?
The Google effect is the tendency of individuals to forget information that they can also find through search engines such as Google (Sparrow, Liu & Wegner, 2007).

The Google effect is also called digital amnesia or busy lifestyle syndrome. People who suffer from the Google effect rely excessively on digital information to "remember" things. They use Google as a guatemala mobile numbers list kind of external hard drive, also called a 'transactive' memory. After all, why bother remembering something when you can find it back later in no time? Moreover, this way we prevent our brain from being overwhelmed by information.

The rise of the Internet and search engines has reduced the need to memorize information yourself. In fact, all information is available online. Massive cell phone use also contributes to an increase in the Google effect. We are perfectly capable of remembering where to find the information we need, rather than remembering the information itself. Therefore, our brain also gives little priority to storing the information. A disadvantage of this can be that the information online is inaccurate or deleted. For general information or facts this may not be as bad, but for important personal information it is.

The study by Sparrow, Liu & Wegner (2007) also shows that we do store information in our memory if we are told that the information will soon be deleted online. So there is nothing wrong with our memory, it just works differently. New information no longer triggers our long-term memory immediately. There is so much information coming at us every day that we have to choose what to remember or not. The way we learn, solve problems and recall information are all affected by the Google effect. And that can also actually make for greater efficiency (Roberts, 2015). As long as we know where to find it again, memorization has become redundant.