Know what? How digital technologies undermine learning and remembering

Highlights

• Digital devices and the internet lead us to depend on them to remember for us.

• Reliance on GPS reduces our own ability to navigate physical space.

• Decreased human navigation skills correlate with dementia.

• Digital screens foster shallower reading than do print texts.

• Digital technologies potentially undermine educational goals.

Abstract

Are digital technologies affecting how we learn, what we know, and how we remember? We examine three aspects of these questions: the impact of the internet on cognitive skills, the way GPS is reshaping abilities to navigate physical space, and differences between digital and print reading. The goal of the analysis is to understand potential effects of digital technologies on educational practices and goals.

We begin by reviewing research demonstrating the growing tendency to depend on digital devices and the internet to do our remembering for us. Regarding GPS, there is mounting evidence that reliance on GPS devices reduces our ability to navigate physical space on our own. Worryingly, studies indicate correlations between decreased navigational skills and dementia. Finally, the article documents how digital reading tends to lead to a more superficial approach to text than traditional print.

Technologies have consequences, including in education. If digital technologies lead to diminished memory, lower our ability to find our way in physical space, and foster shallower reading, we need to consider the consequences for both formal and informal learning.

Introduction

What does it mean to say we know something? Sometimes we are asserting a hunch or intuition, as in “I know you are right.” But on other occasions, we are talking about the fruits of mental effort applied to learning, as in “I know my multiplication tables.” Such knowledge is inextricably linked with memory. The development of writing enabled us to store much of what we know (along with stories we tell) on durable media. To learn something new, I can read about it. If I forget a fact or an event, I can look it up.

Digital technologies (including computers, networking, internet search capabilities, and programs such as GPS) have dramatically expanded our possibilities for durable back-ups for learning and remembering. While consulting printed works requires physical access, computers and the internet have put information literally at our fingertips. Resources available online make the internet a formidable challenger to the world's great libraries and to motivation for holding what we learn in our heads.

This article examines the effects of digital technologies on learning, knowing, and remembering in three cognitive domains: memory, physical navigation, and reading. Notions such as ‘learning’, ‘knowing’, and ‘remembering’ are at once imprecise and complex. Definitions vary, often reflecting particular psychological theories or philosophical stances. Here, we assume lay understandings of these terms. By ‘learning’, we mean acquisition of new information (as in learning how to conjugate a verb in French). By ‘knowing’, we have in mind either surface information (such as ocean temperature change over time) or analyzed information (leading to conclusions about climate change) that becomes part of our cognitive arsenal. By ‘remembering’, we mean committing what we learn or experience to short-term or long-term memory.

We begin our discussion with the impact on memory skills of internet searches for information. Next, we consider how GPS may be reshaping our abilities to navigate. Third, we turn to digital reading, as both a memory and navigation issue. We close by placing these analyses in pedagogical context, confronting how digital technologies in their various manifestations are redefining educational practices and, potentially, aspirations.