[lg policy] Computers remember so you don=?windows-1252?Q?=92t_?=have to

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language: Computers remember so you don’t have to  http://bit.ly/nk1JyZ

Imagine this scenario: You’re on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and you decide to “phone a friend” for help with that million-dollar question. Only you can’t remember the number. You look helplessly into the camera, shrug, and say, “I call him every day, but he’s on my contacts so I just click the link, and I guess I never bothered to memorize his number, haha.” “That’s some expensive haha,” says the host, waving his cigar, followed by, “O.K., George, who’s our next contestant?”

Now a research report in the journal Science suggests that smartphones, along with computers, tablets, and the internet, are weakening our memories. This has implications not just for the future of quiz shows—most of us can’t compete against computers on Jeopardy—but also for the way we deal with information: instead of remembering something, we remember how to look it up. Good luck with that when the internet is down.


read the rest of this post on the Web of Language:  http://bit.ly/nk1JyZ

____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English                    
University of Illinois 
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801                                               

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage








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