Memory loss at the hands of the internet @NYT #EdTech #Education #k12

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A series of psychology experiments conducted by Betsy Sparrow of Columbia University and reported by the NYT suggest that we may be moving toward distributed memory. That is, knowing that information is accessible to us through the web at the press of a few imprints on our touch screen, we make pointers in our brains for that information instead of strong recall imprints.

Is this a real loss? I don’t think so. So long as this loss of recall is matched with a greater ability to synthesize and evaluate information, this may very well be an intellectual quantum leap. What is a quantum leap again? Let me check my phone.