Taking Pictures and posting them to your Facebook and Instagram accounts could be causing you to not retain memories as well as you could be, and we could be causing ourselves to be distracted from “the moment”

In a recent study by scientists and psychologists, it is believed that apps like Facebook are causing us to lose track our most treasured memories. Staring at screens is said not only to impact our health however affect all aspects of our life.

In a recent survey by Kaspersky Lab, 44% of 1000 people aged 16-55 stated that their phone serves as their main source of retaining information and memories.

This may seem true; however, smartphone information generally gets sidetracked from our short-term memory as our brains become overloaded with information. Especially from scrolling through timelines and news pages. It is notably difficult for many of us to recall our parents and siblings phone numbers as we no longer note down information.

The same applies to study and work. When mobile technology is readily available for students and children, it is reported there is an attention span of 3 minutes before the technology sidetracks them as it is such an addictive source of data. Therefore, teachers recommend the traditional approach to revision, no phone, but books and writing paper.

Using a phone to read and write notes can be less effective in memorizing as it can be unprioritized when social media is reaching out to the user, as the likes of Facebook and Instagram are far more engaging than exam preparation.

When quizzed on general knowledge, mobile users turn straight to the internet to gather information, as much as 90% of participants in a survey by Fortune used the internet as their extension of their brains. Most surprisingly, once information has been gathered for its purpose, it is usually forgotten moments later, with 28% of these people forgetting a given fact immediately after they had used it.

Mobile phones are most importantly damaging our attention spans, social mobility and intelligence. The modern generation of users has become too dependent on the device to store and find information instead of staying traditional.

Written by Harrison Jones

References :

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/29/memories-altered-smartphone-photographs/ https://www.thriveglobal.com/stories/23943-is-smartphone-addiction-ruining-your-memory