Because search engines such as Google and Bing are so readily at hand, through desktop computers and mobile phones, we feel less need to remember details that can be easily looked up, note researchers from Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin, and Harvard University.

They have , entitled "Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips," in this week's edition of the journal Science.

"People worry about what our relationship to technology is doing to our cognition," said Betty Sparrow, a researcher at Columbia University who led the research. "They worry about looking up everything online and not remembering it all."

To probe the effects of this behavior, the researchers carried out a battery of tests with undergraduate students that closely observed what information they committed to memory and what information they didn't bother remembering, presuming that they could look it up on a computer should they need to refer to it later.

In one test, 28 participants were asked to read and retype items of memorable trivia, such as "Greenland is the world's largest island by area." Some of the participants were told the information that they typed in would be erased and others were told it would be saved on a computer. Then, they were quizzed on the material they retyped. Those that believed their material would be erased remembered more of the information than those who had assumed the material would be saved.