Using digital devices, such as smartphones, could help improve memory skills rather than causing people to become lazy or forgetful, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.
Surprisingly, the study shows that using smartphones helps people remember both information that is saved and also not saved on the device.
Neuroscientists have previously expressed concerns that the overuse of technology could result in the breakdown of cognitive abilities and cause “digital dementia”.
Sam Gilbert, the study’s senior author, said in a news release that the scientists aimed to explore how storing information in a digital device could influence a person’s memory abilities.
“We found that when people were allowed to use external memory, the device helped them to remember the information they had saved into it. This was hardly surprising, but we also found that the device improved people’s memory for unsaved information as well,” said senior author Dr Sam Gilbert.
“This was because using the device shifted the way that people used their memory to store high-importance versus low-importance information. When people had to remember by themselves, they used their memory capacity to remember the most important information. But when they could use the device, they saved high-importance information into the device and used their own memory for less important information instead.”
For the study, the team developed a memory task, played on a touchscreen digital tablet or computer. Nearly 160 people between 18 and 71 participated in the experiment.
Participants were shown up to 12 numbered circles on the screen, and had to remember to drag some circles to the left and some to the right.
The number of circles they remembered to drag to the correct side of the screen determined their pay at the end of the experiment.
The study’s participants performed this task 16 times, using their own memory to remember for half of the trials and being allowed to set reminders on the digital device for the other half.
“The results show that external memory tools work. Far from causing ‘digital dementia’, using an external memory device can even improve our memory for information that we never saved. But we need to be careful that we back up the most important information. Otherwise, if a memory tool fails, we could be left with nothing but lower-importance information in our own memory,” Dr. Gilbert concludes.