雅思课外读物--Is Internet eating our memory?

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易伯华雅思君是来传播雅思阅读素材的，今天要和大家分享的叫做“Is Internet eating our memory?”，互联网吃了我们的记忆吗？NO,NO,NO，互联网伤害了我们的记忆了吗？电脑网络使我们无需记住那么多东西，这是损害(impair)我们的记忆力了吗?也许，当我们不需要记住某些东西的时候，我们就能记住更为重要的东西了。

In the years since the world started going digital, one of the big changes

has been that we don’t need to remember very much. Why risk forgetting a

partner’s birthday or a dinner date with a close friend when you can commit the

details to your computer, laptop, smartphone or tablet and get a reminder at the

appropriate time?

Paul McCartney gave a useful insight into this in an interview over the

summer. He claimed that back in the 1960s the Beatles may have written dozens of

songs that were never released because he and John Lennon would forget the songs

the following morning.

We would write a song and just have to remember it. And there was always the

risk that we’d just forget it. If the next morning you couldn’t remember it — it

was gone.

How different to the way he records now then, when he can “form the thing,

have it all finished , remember it all, go in pretty quickly and record it.”

With technologynow well ingratiated into our everyday life, researchers have

been investigating the lasting impact that it is having on the way that we learn

and remember information. Some research has suggested that our reliance on

technology and the Internet is leading to “digital amnesia,”where individuals

are no longer able to retain information as a result of storing information on a

digital device.

In one study, forexample, 1,000 consumers aged 16 and over were asked about

their use of technology. It found that 91 percent of them depended on the

Internet and digital devices as a tool for remembering. In another survey of

6,000 people,the same study found that 71 percent of people could not remember

their children’s phone numbers and 57 percent could not remember their work

phone number. This suggests that relying on digital devices to remember

information is impairing our own memory systems.

But before we mourn this apparent loss of memory, more recent studies suggest

that we may be adapting.One such study from 2011 conducted a series of

experiments looking at how our memories rely on computers. In one of them,

participants were asked to type a series of statements, such as “an ostrich’s

eye is bigger than its brain.”

Half of them were told that their documents would be saved, and half were

told that they would not. Everyone was then tested to see if they could remember

what they had typed. Those who had been told their work would be saved were

significantly poorer at remembering the information.

In another experiment, participants were asked to type a series of statements

that would be saved in specific folders. They were then asked to recall the

statements and the folders in which the files were located. Overall, they were

better at recalling the file locations than the statements. The conclusion from

the two experiments?Technology has changed the way we organize information so

that we only remember details which are no longer available, and prioritize the

location of information over the content itself.

This idea that individuals prioritize where information is located has led

some researchers to propose that digital devices and the Internet have become a

form of transactive memory. This idea, which dates back to the 1980s, refers to

a group memory that is superior to that of any individual.

According to this account, individuals can collectively store and distribute

information using a shared store of knowledge. This store of knowledge means

that individuals can access details that they may not know themselves by knowing

that another individual remembers it, thus enhancing what information is

available to them by communicating with other people. In the same way,

individuals develop a transactive memory with the Internet and rely on it for

information by focusing on where details are located rather than the details

themselves.

More recent research has extended this line of work and found that saving

information on a computer not only changes how our brains interact with it, but

also makes it easier to learn new information. In a study published last year,

the participants were presented with two files that each contained a list of

words.They were asked to memorize both lists. Half of the participants were

asked to save the first file before moving on to the next list, while the others

had to close it without saving.

The experiment revealed that the participants recalled significantly more

information from the second file if they had saved the previous file. This

suggests that by savingor “offloading” information on to a computer, we are

freeing up cognitivere sources that enable us to memorize and recall new

information instead.

In sum, anyone worrying that technology is wrecking one of our most important

abilities should take some reassurance from these findings. It doesn’t

necessarily mean that there is no cause for concern: for instance McCartney said

in the same interview that the songs in the 1960s that did make it to the

recording studio were the most memorable ones. So it is possible that the lack

of technology made the Beatles better songwriters.

But it may be that just as oral storytelling was usurped by the written word,

having digital devices to outsource our memories means that it is no longer

necessary for us to try to remember everything. And if we can now remember more

with a little help from our technology friends, that is arguably a great step

forward. Rather than worrying about what we have lost, perhaps we need to focus

on what we have gained.

Vocabulary

Reminder 提醒物

Ingratiate 讨好，使欢心

Amnesia 失忆症

Retain 留住

Impair 损害

Mourn 悲叹

Prioritize 将……优先

Transactive 联动的

Superior 比……更好(to)

Distribute 分布;分发

Usurp 篡夺;抢占

Outsource 外包

Arguably 可以争辩地，可以说是…..

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