Information has never been easier to find or record. Within seconds, the Internet lets us find answers to questions that would have remained elusive just a few decades ago. We don’t even have to remember the answers – we can just look them up again.

Now, three psychologists have shown how our memories might react to this omnipresent store of information. They have found that when American students expect to have access to information in the future, they remember that information less well. But there’s a positive flipside: they’re also better at remembering where to find the information again.

The study lends some solid experimental weight to a game of speculative ping-pong that has bounced along for years. In 2008, Nicholas Carr asked if Google was making us stupid in a provocative Atlantic article that raised the prospect of weakening memories, among other potential ills. In his later book, The Shallows, Carr wrote, “The Web provides a convenient and compelling supplement to personal memory, but when we start using the Web as a substitute for personal memory, bypassing inner processes of consolidation, we risk emptying our minds of their riches.”

Critics ...