Running head: RESEARCH: WRITE UP

Research: Write Up
Influence of Technology on Memory
Melissa Burggraaf
Salt Lake Community College

RESEARCH: WRITE UP
Introduction
When it comes to functioning in the world today, our memory is vitally important.
Memory is our brain's filing system. It organizes everything that we perceive and the way we do
store certain things can affect the way we live our life. Many researchers believe that our
working memory is key to our intelligence (UK Science Museum, n.d.). Yet the technology of
today may have more of an influence on our memory than we perceive. This research will look
into the influence of smartphones on storage and retrieval memory processes among young
adults, ages 18-25.
Researchers of the scientific world have also been intrigued by the effect our quick
technology has on our working mind. One study interviewed individuals in hopes to figure out
the correlation between smartphones and memories (Hand, 2014). Another set of researchers
surveyed students and found results with how multitasking with technology can cause
consequences with the working memory (Angell, Gorton, et al, 2016). A different study was
recently done, conducting experiments to find proof that our brains have adapted to technology
(Fox, Rosen, Crawford, 2009). The last study tested people to find the results of how instant
messaging affects cognitive efficiency (Milfred, 2013). All four studies deal with the inner
workings of the brain and how up and coming technology in our world today has more of an
influence than we give it credit for.
Research One
Martin Hand, of Queen's University in Canada, conducted a series of interviews with 30
individuals between the ages of 20 and 30. In 2012, Hand published an academic journal on his
findings about the relationship between memories and smartphones. In the interviews, Hand

RESEARCH: WRITE UP
learns that technology definitely has an influence on the way our memory stores things we
perceive. Because of technology, the way we store our memory is different than how people
remembered things a century ago. The purpose of the interviews was to find how smartphones
and their capacities to reshape and change our memory practices in our everyday personal life.
The carefully created interview's purpose was to find the correlation between remembering,
forgetting and the 'digital age' (Hand, 2014). With interviews being the main source of
information for this research, one may come across the problem of the interviewee answering
with what they assume to be the correct answer, allowing misinformation to enter the overall
data.
With all the interviews collected and analyzed, Hand concluded that with all the
technology we casually use throughout the day and the amount of social media we use to post
and share information it actually creates further 'memory working.' The interviews supported the
idea that our memories are evolving and changing with the new forms of social media and
technology. With smartphones and tablets, users are adapting and learning instead of simply
reproducing actions. All of the information put on social media profiles forces the users to store
more into their memory, creating larger scale archives of cultural and social memories. It is also
concluded that smartphones have become a part of the human body. They are an extension of a
person and, in a way, are a second brain, holding phone numbers, profiles, and text messages.
Yet information held within smart devices are not permanent memories and are subject to being
forgotten unless worked on and consolidated. This shows that technology is not used to work for
past uses, but for future intentions (Hand, 2014). Whether talking about smartphones or
computers, it is clear that this study contributes viable information to the question being posed
about what technology does to our memory. We rely heavily on the tiny computer in our pocket

RESEARCH: WRITE UP
that it, in turn, has become a second brain and our capacity to remember is divided between our
natural brain and our handheld brain.
Research Two
To learn more about the effect of multitasking with technology, Robert Angell, Matthew
Gorton, Johannes Sauer, Paul Bottomley, and John White sent out a survey to 620 students (ages
18-20) of three UK universities. The survey asked questions about a previously broadcasted
sports event and the students answered honestly about how much they remembered. It must also
be taken into consideration how honestly the students answered and the kind of students that
would reply to the survey questions instead of ignoring them. This study talks about the recall
and recognition ability for advertisements on the television. Although this study isn't in direct
correspondence with how smartphones affect working memory, it still deals with the memory
capacity (Angell, Gorton, et al, 2016). This academic journal covers the affect multitasking with
technology has on what people are able to recall.
The purpose of the survey was to determine whether or not multitasking blocks our
working memory and inhibits us from paying close attention to details. Although the main reason
for conducting the survey was to figure out if multitasking had to continuously be a
consideration when creating an advertisement for a product, this research still applies to the
question being posed in this paper. How is technology affecting our memory? It was decided by
the results of the experiment, that if motivation is high, memory is more efficient. If the action
being done with a phone, such as texting or tweeting, is in some way related to the other action
taking place, recalling of the event is strengthened and the memory is easier to retrieve. Aside
from that result, this study supports the statement that multitasking with one's phone will lead to

RESEARCH: WRITE UP
a harder time retrieving and recalling past memories. If the person is doing something with their
phone that in no way relates to what's happening around them, they do not remember as much if
they were off their phone. Doing more than one thing at a time, if not related in any way, will
negatively affect the way things are remembered or if they are remembered at all. This answers
the question posed for this paper on how smartphones affect the storage of memory. If a phone is
in one's hand, the event happening around them will be stored into the mind differently than if
they were simply experiencing the event with no distractions (Angell, Gorton, et al, 2016).
Research Three
Instant messaging is done by all in our society to communicate with one another and
convey emotions of current situations. It is especially done between college students and is found
everywhere on a campus. When instant messaging, users are often multitasking and not giving
their full attention to the conversation happening electronically. When multitasking a current
mode of media and an intellectual task, the outcome of recalling memory is negatively affected.
Annie Beth Fox, Jonathan Rosen, and Mary Crawford conducted an experiment to test whether
instant messaging affects the outcome of their reading test. Sixty-nine undergraduate students
taking an introductory psychology course participated in this experiment. All used instant
messaging and then were asked to take a reading comprehension test. Each participant were
enrolled in a psychology class, thus affecting the end result of the experiment itself. Along with
the tests, surveys involving internet and computer use were distributed among the students (Fox,
Rosen, Crawford, 2009).
Even though many of the students participating in the experiments were frequent and
experienced users of instant messaging, many of them had lower scores on the comprehension

RESEARCH: WRITE UP
tests. Many were comfortable with multitasking and conversing with more than two people at a
time with instant messaging, yet that showed a negative correlation with the test results. It was
clear from the results that the more time spent on instant messenger, the lower the test scores.
Little is known about the cognitive consequences caused by instant messaging. The conclusion
of this study supports the fact that instant messaging decreased efficiency and that the amount of
time spent instant messaging is related to poor performances on cognitive tests. Social media and
fast technology does affect college students and how well they do in school, but it is clear that
more research must be done to find out how rapid processing equipment can affect our cognitive
skills (Fox, Rosen, Crawford, 2009). Even if we grew up in a world where it was common place
for everyone to have a smart device nearby to use, we must recognize the effect it has on us. This
study proves that something as simple as communicating with our friend via technology can
impair our skills like comprehension and reading.
Research Four
At Columbia University, Dr. Betsy Sparrow conducted a research on how our easy access
to the Internet is changing human memory. Four experiments were conducted to find out how
recent technology has affected our minds and how they adapted along the process of modern life.
Subjects were given 40 facts to type out on a computer. Twenty of them were told the facts
would be saved on the computer, the other half were told that they would be erased. The
experiment ended with the participants writing down the facts that they could remember from the
previous task. Next, the researchers conducted an experiment to find out if people use the
internet as an external memory source ready to use at any given moment. The research methods
used in this study all had to do with memory and whether or not the participants remembered

RESEARCH: WRITE UP
anything at all when it came to the facts being given. Another experiment involved subjects
putting certain pieces of trivia into specific folders and recalling what the trivia was or where it
was placed (Milfred, 2013). As with all experiments done in a controlled environment, the
results cannot come out to be 100% accurate, but they still produce helpful and supportive
information.
The conclusions following Sparrow's experiments were very intriguing and interesting.
When participants were told that the facts they were typing out would be erased when completed,
the subjects were most likely to remember more of the facts than the people who were told they
would be saved. Transactive memory is very common when it comes to smartphones and we, as
humans with a limited-capacity brain, must offload information somehow, whether by writing it
down or telling someone else. The internet is used in the same way. One of the experiments
conducted by Sparrow supported the idea that when we face a difficult piece of trivia or
question, our brains our primed to think of computers to aid us. With the experiment involving
subjects putting facts into certain folders it was astonishing that most people remembered where
the fact was put, but not what the fact stated exactly. All the results of these experiments suggest
that there have been changes in our memory patterns, not just because of the internet, but
because of the ease and availability of smartphones and tablets. This proves that smartphones
truly do affect the way we process memories and store them (Milfred, 2013).
My Opinions
Technology is all around us and one can't function in society without some contact with
computers, phones, televisions, and such. To advance in the world, one must adapt to these uses
of technology. Smartphones are everywhere and everyone seems to be using them. One day, I

RESEARCH: WRITE UP
was walking on campus and every single person I passed was looking down at their phone. It
made me wonder how using a fast, reliable smartphone would affect our way of thinking. We are
all so accustomed to being able to find an answer to anything by quickly typing it into our
phones, reading the answer, and then forgetting about it in an hour or so. I have always been
curious as to the long-term effects of the tiny computer we all carry in our pockets everyday.
Every research I read about and studied are agreeable to me and help answer my question
as to how technology is affecting our way of being. Our phones have become an extension of our
mind, helping us store information we don't deem important enough for our actual working
memory. We've also entered a world where doing one task isn't acceptable. It's possible for us to
easily multitask and because of that, our attention and senses are divided and limited. The
information going into our brain isn't as powerful as if it were the only thing we were focused on,
thus creating a feeble and weak memory that may not become permanently stored for future
retrieval. The fact that we rely so easily and heavily on search engines to answer our questions
does allow us to only remember important facts and events yet also makes us depend on the
internet when, not too long ago, people didn't have to. Of all the resources, I agree with Dr. Betsy
Sparrow on the fact that yes, the internet and technology have indeed changed the way our brain
works. Our brains have had to adapt to using technology everyday and has helped our society
grow and thrive. But we may rely too heavily on these tiny computers when we should be
focusing on the improvement of our brain's storage and retrieval abilities instead.

RESEARCH: WRITE UP
Refrences:
Angell, R., Gorton, M., Sauer, J., Bottomley, P., & White, J. (2016). Don't Distract Me When I'm
Mediea Multitasking: Toward a Theory for Raising Advertising Recall and Recognition.
Journal Of Advertising, 45(2), 198. doi:10.1080/00913367.2015.1130665
Fox, A. B., Rosen, J., & Crawford, M. (2009). Distractions, distractions: does instant messaging
affect college students' performance on a concurrent reading comprehension task?.
CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12(1), 51-53.
Hand, M. (2014). Persistent traces, potential memories Smartphones and the negotiation of
visual, locative, and textual data in personal life. Convergence: The International Journal
of Research into New Media Technologies, 1354856514546094.
Milfred, J., (2013, May 11). Is Google Ruining Your Memory? The Science of Memory in the
Digital Age. Retrieved from http://www.yalescientific.org/2013/05/is-google-ruiningyour-memory-the-science-of-memory-in-the-digital-age/
Science Museum, (n.d.). Who Am I: Why is Your Memory So Important? Retrieved from
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/whoami/findoutmore/yourbrain/whyisyourmemorysoi
mportant