at 16,000 feet, it encountered a massive storm front. Approaching the airport, the planeís

controls began to shudder loudlyóa sign the plane was losing lift and might stall. The

pilot took actionóhe pulled back on the controls, lifting the planeís nose. This was precisely

the wrong thing to do - instead of preventing a stall, he caused one. The plane spun out

of control, and plummeted into a house killing all on board. How had this pilot forgotten

his basic emergency training? Is technology ruining our memory? Weíre all living in the

age of Google. When we Google one thing and Wikipedia another, weíre not relying on our

brains but on our fingertips. Is it making us dumber? First you have to consider there

are two main types of memory, nondeclarative memory for skills, emotions and movement;

like how to ride a bike. And then thereís declarative memory, for facts and information,

like your phone number or the capital of Australia. So when we use technology to look up information,

weíre extending our declarative memories. But is that at the expense of our whatís

in our brain? The hippocampus is a major part of the brain we use in declarative memory

function. It gives us the ability to retain and recall memories about facts, like the

largest animal on earth, and events, like your first kiss or the first CD you bought.

The formation of new declarative memories relies on both the hippocampus and a region

around it, the parahippocampal gyrus. So what happens when we have information at our fingertips

and we don't need to remember facts anymore? Well the process in our brain of how we form,

retain and recall memories remains the same. What changes is what we choose to form memories

about. Instead of remembering more facts, we remember where to find them ó this is

called The Google Effect. In one study, participants who were told they could later look up the

answers online did not make the effort to remember general trivia. When asked a question

people actually thought about computers and search engines instead of searching their

own memories for the answer. The use of external memory systems is called transactive memory

and itís not new. Einstein once said ì[I do not] carry such information in my mind

since it is readily available in books.î Plus weíve relied on other people to remember

things for usólike a husband or wife. Now thereís a third wheel in the relationshipóGoogleóand

itís connecting us like never before. As for that lump of matter inside of our headsóthatís

connected too. For our declarative memory, using technology just means weíre tweaking

our memory hard drive so we remember where the files and folders are, where we can find

information, not necessarily the facts themselves. This will probably happen more and more as

our relationship with devices grows. But itís not necessarily a bad thing! fMRI scans showed

that for people who are internet savvy, areas of our brains are way more active searching

for information online than when reading a book. In our brains our hippocampus is still

working the same way, weíre just choosing to retain the most efficient way to find information,

and thatís usually online. Weíre all sharing the work of remembering, and it makes us collectively

smarter. Itís actually pretty adaptive. The only disadvantage is when you need knowledge

on the fly. For split-second decisions, all you can search is that lump of matter inside

your head. If you have a burning psychology question, leave it in the comments and subscribe

to Braincraft for a new video every other week.