Digital Amnesia: Is Your Smart Phone Making You Dumb?

Is your cell phone and Internet usage doing you more harm than good?

Maybe.

According to a new study by a software company 

Jay Kindschi is a anatomy and physiology professor at MATC. We talked with him about a recent study on “Digital Amnesia” - the theory that your cell phone - and Internet usage - are weakening human memory. 

"When we learn new things, it is the process of forming new and fragile connections between neurons that allow us to build new circuits so we can memorize new things," Kindschi said. 

"It’s kind of the lose it and use it phenomenon."

Jonathan Arnold, an IT Professor at MATC, says it could be influencing the human race -- in a good way. 

"I would say its making our society more adept at retrieving information and more adept at filtering information, and what information is good and what information is reliable."

He says that despite our over reliance on technology -- your smart phone isn't make you dumb. 

"It's not necessarily that we’re losing the ability to memorize," he said. "It's more of a fact that we’re transitioning as a society."

Kindschi agrees that too much tech time could change our brains over long periods of time -- and shape future generations. So he overs a word of caution. 

"I think about technology like frosting," he said. "I wouldn’t sit down and have frosting for my whole meal, but a little bit of frosting makes the meal a lot better."

The study also found that people don’t back up their phones and computers enough…so make sure to protect your files by doing backups often.