According to a new study led by UCL researchers, using smartphones, smart watches and other digital devices can improve the memory skills of a person. The research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, showed that digital devices help people to store and remember very important information. This, in turn, frees up their memory to recall additional less important things.

Neuroscientists have previously expressed concerns that the overuse of technology could result in the breakdown of cognitive abilities and cause "digital dementia". [1]

Figure 1. Phones, Smartwatches and other Digital Devices make you Smarter

Figure 1 shows to demonstrate this, researchers developed a memory task to be played on a touchscreen digital tablet or computer. The test was undertaken by 158 volunteers aged between 18 and 71.

Participants were shown up to 12 numbered circles on the screen, and had to remember to drag some of these to the left and some to the right. The number of circles that they remembered to drag to the correct side determined their pay at the end of the experiment. One side was designated ‘high value’, meaning that remembering to drag a circle to this side was worth 10 times as much money as remembering to drag a circle to the other ‘low value’ side. [2]

However, outcomes additionally confirmed a possible price to utilizing reminders. When they have been taken away, the individuals remembered the low-value circles higher than the high-value ones, exhibiting that they’d entrusted the high-value circles to their gadgets after which forgotten about them.

“We discovered that when folks have been allowed to make use of an exterior reminiscence, the gadget helped them to recollect the knowledge they’d saved into it. This was hardly shocking, however we additionally discovered that the gadget improved folks’s reminiscence for unsaved info as effectively. [3]

The results show that external memory tools work. Far from causing ‘digital dementia’, using an external memory device can even improve our memory for information that we never saved. But we need to be careful that we back up the most important information. Otherwise, if a memory tool fails, we could be left with nothing but lower-importance information in our own memory.” [3]

References:

1. https://gadgets360.com/mobiles/news/smartphones-smartwatches-digital-devices-improve-memory-skills-study-3216139
2. https://crazyengineer.in/smartphones-smartwatches-digital-devices-improve-memory-skills-study-3216139rss-gadgets-news/
3. https://www.theblog101.com/phones-smartwatches-other-digital-devices-make-you-smarter-suggests-study/

Cite this article:

Thanusri swetha J (2022), Phones, Smartwatches and other Digital Devices make you Smarter, AnaTechMaz, pp. 105