Did you know that with each Twitter message you send, your memory weakens? With every tweet you send 140 of your brain cells die.
Just kidding! But apparently a psychologist Dr. Tracey Alloway has ascertained that games like Sudoku, and Total War, besides probably being her favourites, are also good for your Working Memory. If you didn’t know, working memory is the next-big-thing after those outdated IQ scores. IQ scores are so out! All they measure is how intelligent you are, Working memory instead is a measure of how much information one can remember and use. Your brain’s RAM if you will. According to Dr. Alloway, working memory is a much more important factor for success and happiness.
Apparently Twitter, like many of our favourite Twitter clients is a RAM hog, worse, it destroys your working memory by blasting you with small bits of information that require little thought or processing.
Facebook on the other hand, can do wonders for your working memory, continually challenging you will remembering the intricacies of the social contract. Who poked whom, and where did that toilet paper come from, you’ll be exercising your mind all the time!
While she stops short of endorsing games like Total War saying: ”I’m not saying they’re good for your socialisation skills, but they do make you use your working memory,” she claims that the instantaneous nature of services like Twitter, YouTube is harmful for the development of working memory.
Is Facebook getting dumber then? With a real time timeline of status updates like Twitter?
An example of FaceBook improving working memory can be readily seen in two girls ages 10, and 12, who updated their FaceBook status instead of calling for help when they were stuck in a storm drain. Of course the instantaneous nature of the help they would have got on calling the police could have retarded their development.
Thanks but we’ll stick to our high IQ!
Nevertheless, her research is an interesting look on what impacts working memory, and how it affects ones life. It can be of immense help in understanding memory conditions and disabilities. Find out more about her and her research on her page on the University of Stirling website.
Source: Telegraph.co.uk