Page 47 - Coespu 2018-3

INFLUENCES OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGY IN OUR MEMORY

By Dr. Davide PEREGO

Introduction
While smartphones and related mobile technologies are recognized as flexible and powerful tools
that, when used prudently, can augment human cognition, there is also a growing perception that
habitual involvement with these devices may have a negative and lasting impact on users’ ability to
think, remember, pay attention, and regulate emotion. About this topic, many other research and
study in the health field,
have explored others
problems like usage of the
mobile phones and the
addiction like symptoms of
overuse, or possible effects
of radio frequency
electromagnetic field emitted
from the devices on the
human brain, or orthopedic
problem like inflammation of
tendon of the thumb owing
to overuse of the finger to
manage the chat. The focus
of this review is in the
memory, one of three facets of cognition (attention, memory, and delay of gratification) that are
clearly implicated regarding the impacts of mobile technology.
Memory and Knowledge
Smartphones provide constant access to an endless and ever-improving database of collective
knowledge. Having this access enables people to search for, locate, and learn seemingly any fact
that they desire. Prior to the advent of the World Wide Web, the closest available approximation of
this sort of resource was a multi-volume encyclopedia, where the cost and limited portability of
which precluded ubiquitous use. Internet search engines enable anyone has a mobile device, to have
access an incredible large amount of information, often free or at very low cost. Moreover,
smartphone technology allows people to take this information wherever they wish, and access it
immediately. Though it may seem as if constant access to a limitless database of knowledge should
improve cognition, much has been written about how the rapidly changing landscape of technology
is negatively affecting how we remember our own lives, the places we have been, and those with
whom we have interacted. One topic that has been investigated is the oft-cited claim that modern
technology is leading us to depend upon our devices to store information for us. In a highly
influential and informative study, Sparrow et al. (2011) asked participants to type a series of newly
learned trivia facts into a computer. Half of the participants were told that the computer would store
their typed information for them and that they would be able to access it later, whereas the other
half believed that the information would soon be erased. The individuals who believed they would
maintain access to the typed information performed more poorly on a later recall task. Importantly,

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