Use of smart phones and devices could lead to ‘digital amnesia’

The use of smart phones and the internet had proliferated to such an extent that these were being used by many people as aids to memory, which could lead to 'digital amnesia' a new survey suggested. 

The survey involving 6,000 people aged 16 or older in six European countries, including the UK, showed that people increasingly relied on their devices and were unable to recall important information about their loved ones.

The survey found seven in ten could not remember their children's phone numbers and nearly nine in 10 failed to recall the numbers for their children's schools.

According to the survey by cyber-security company Kaspersky Lab, only half of adults could instantly remember their home phone number from when they were 10 to 15 years old.

Over half of people aged up to 25 said their smart phone held almost everything they needed to know, 'The Times' reported.

According to Kaathryn Mills of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, one of the reasons consumers might be less worried about remembering information was they have connected devices they trusted.

According to David Emm, the principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, connected devices enriched users' lives but they had also given rise to digital amnesia. The long-term implications of this for how we remembered and how we protected our memories needed to be understood, he added.