The Internet is becoming our main source of memory instead of our own brains, a study has concluded.

In the age of Google, our minds are adapting so that we are experts at knowing where to find information even though we don’t recall what it is.

The researchers found that when we want to know something we use the Internet as an ‘external memory’ just as computers use an external hard drive.

Nowadays we are so reliant on our smart phones and laptops that we go into ‘withdrawal when we can’t find out something immediately’.

And such is our dependence that having our Internet connection severed is growing ‘more and more like losing a friend’.

Researchers from Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Columbia University in the US carried out four tests to check their theory.

They involved giving test participants a trivia quiz and then seeing whether they recognised computer-related words more quickly than other words.

The other tests involved seeing if people remembered 40 pieces information they would typically later have normally looked up.

The third and fourth parts of the study involved checking how well people remember where to look up information on-line and whether or not they remembered the location more than the actual data.

The results showed that when people don’t believe they will need information for a later test, they do not recall it at the same rate as when they do believe they will need it.

In fact, some of those in the study ‘actively did not make the effort to remember when they thought they could later look up the trivia statements they had read’, the paper says.

The other results showed that when continuous Internet access is expected, people are better at remembering where they can find it than the details.

一项研究得出结论称，网络正取代人脑成为记忆的主要存储库。

我们的大脑正逐渐适应谷歌时代，就算我们记不起某一信息，我们却善于从网络中找出这一信息。

研究人员发现，当我们想知道某一事物时，我们就会将网络作为一种“外存”，就像电脑使用外部硬盘驱动器一样。

如今我们是如此依赖于我们的智能手机和笔记本电脑，当我们“无法立刻找出某一信息时，我们的生活甚至会停摆”。

我们也非常依赖于网络，如果我们的网络连接中断了，我们会“越来越觉得像失去了一个朋友”。

来自美国哈佛大学、威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校和哥伦比亚大学的研究人员为了验证他们的理论，开展了四项测试。

这些测试包括让参与者做琐碎记忆测试，看他们是否能更快识别和电脑相关的词汇。

其他的测试包括观察人们是否能记住40条他们一般稍后会查阅的信息。

研究的第三和第四部分包括查看人们是否能很好地记住查阅信息的网站，以及他们是否对网站比对信息本身记得更清楚。

结果显示，当人们认为自己在稍后的测试中不需要该信息时，他们能回忆起来的信息比认为自己稍后将需要该信息时要少。

该研究报告称，事实上，部分参与研究的人“没有积极努力地去记住他们所看到的信息，因为他们认为稍后可以查阅到这些琐碎信息”。

其他研究结果显示，当人们期待可以持续地连接到互联网时，人们更善于记住找到信息的地方而非信息的细节。