"Psychiatric Disorders of Current Generation" - Digital amnesia

Digital Amnesia

(Article published in April 2019 edition of Mediscene magazine of SURAT IMA)

“Digital Amnesia: the experience of forgetting information that you trust a digital device to store and remember for you”. (Kaspersky Lab)

(Also termed as digital dementia and technology induced memory atrophy)

In May 2015, Kaspersky Lab a Cybersecurity Company in USA conducted an online survey in india, usa and europe on approximately 1000 people to find their dependence on internet and digital devices and they unearthed some extraordinary findings. Almost all the participants (92%) admitted that they use digital devices and internet a lot for remembering things which they themselves earlier used to remember like important phone numbers, addresses and birthdates. It also revealed that many of them chose to “happily” forget such details due to the fact that it can be retrieved online immediately when required. Ironically it was observed so not in just younger generations but also in older generations equally and lastly the prospect of losing all the data stored on the devices and losing access to internet was very terrifying for all the participants as they felt they will be severely handicapped otherwise.

Some of the major consequences of this new phenomenon are:

• Loss of creativity: We are more accustomed with Google and YouTube videos for searching ideas or any creative artwork instead of using our brain. There is also enormous mental pressure and competition in professional life.
• Affect human memory: There is lesser mental capability of remembering and retaining information.
• Technological addiction: People are becoming over dependent on online information for each and every purpose and are also getting addicted to apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc which are very much time consuming.
• Digital Divide: People who have advance technical knowledge are becoming more important (youth) and are occupying higher positions in the society whereas those who are financially unstable and have no access to the advanced technology are left out and often termed as backward especially people of old age.
• Shift in Education pattern: Due to technological advances there is shift in pattern of studies from books to more online studies. Boards are replaced by Projector screens and students use mobiles to store information instead of reading and writing. Students are given more PowerPoint presentations instead of written assignments and competitive exams are organized online instead of offline or written. Since writing helps in retaining information so there is always tendency of forgetting among students due to these technical advancements.

Thus the rise of digital amnesia is letting people believe that they can forget information as it can be easily retrieved from the digital devices. This lowers our tendency to retain information in the long term memory which may later become permanent in some cases. Every educated person must be aware enough to control their dependence on digital devices and try to balance it with the other form of knowledge acquisition majorly through the first hand experience.