Don’t know the phone numbers of your family or friends? Do you Google important dates that you don’t remember? Experts believe that having so much information available at all times has caused people, especially the new generations, to lose some memory and attention skills.
If you identified with the above questions and, in addition, the search engine solves most of your problems, Waze helps you get to a place and your cell phone reminds you of an appointment. It can be said that you are acquiring the habit of outsourcing your memory, something very common.
However, even though the above sounds like performing these types of actions can save you from having a bad time due to forgetfulness, for example, there are others who are starting to worry about it.
Like Robert Bjork, a research professor in the psychology department at UCLA University, who told The Telegraph that technology is weakening the ability to remember simple facts, such as phone numbers. This is a much more serious problem for the generation that is digital native.
What is happening with the new generations is really worrying, according to experts.
For Nancy Franklin, a psychologist at Stoney Brook University in New York, it is not uncommon for new generations:
“Grow up with developmental deficits in the prefrontal cortex. Memory is not 100 percent perfect and we all have lapses. But really, people use fewer parts of their brain for activities that relate to looking for information.”
For its part a research conducted in 2019 by Australian, American and European scientists, which was published in the journal World Psychiatry. It showed that the digital native generations could face cognitive impairments in the future, as the Internet occupies a very important place in their lives.
In addition, research conducted by academics from Oxford, King’s College, Harvard and Western Sydney universities. They analyzed the effects of playing online for six weeks in a row, the result is that there is a reduction in gray matter within the orbifrontal cortex, the region of the brain that controls impulses and decision making.
Finally, what the researchers conclude is that it is not a matter of completely avoiding the use of technology, because it has many benefits. The idea is to exercise the memory, because if it is not used, it atrophies and, consequently, the ability to memorize could be lost forever.
If you liked this article, you can also read: They know how to read, but they don’t understand anything: this generation is illiterate!
