"Connected devices enrich our lives but they have also given rise to digital amnesia. We need to understand the long-term implications of this for how we remember and how we protect [our] memories."
David Emm, principal researcher of Kaspersky Lab, concluded as a result of the company's study that 'digital amnesia' is found among people, especially the millennials, who are becoming more forgetful.
Digital security company Kaspersky Lab has released the said research -- showing that the extensive use of smartphones and the internet is causing people to forget information, specifically, contact numbers.
Virtually an extension of the human memory, people have become heavily reliant on smart devices and the internet. Kaspersky Lab has conducted a survey with over 6000 participants coming from six European countries, which included the United Kingdom.
The participants are aged 16 years old and above. Kaspersky Lab found out that many could not recall important details about their loved ones. The survey also recorded that seven out of ten cannot remember their children's phone numbers.
Only five out of ten are found to be able to recall their old telephone numbers. Majority of the survey participants are also unable to recall their phone numbers from work. And all the said figures are believed to be really alarming.
The lack of memorization skill is thought to come from the dependence on connected devices. In addition to this, smartphones have done away with keypads for dialling numbers. Some contact details can now even be accessed via social network accounts.
Information is also readily available in the internet, where they can just be copied and pasted. Not really required to be remembered.
The lapse is predictably evident among participants who are generally classified as millenials -- claiming that their phones and the internet have everything they need.
Over the years, studies found that people have decreased attention span since the time when mobiles and the internet have taken over. The new study seems to show an adverse effect of this.
