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On the internet, we can look up information that is not in one’s memory, but also information that is in one’s memory, but does not come immediately to mind. We become susceptible, therefore, to googling before trying to retrieve, which bypasses the benefits of “retrieval as a memory modifier” (Bjork, 1975), including that even a failed attempt to retrieve yet-to-be-learned information can potentiate learning of new information. Across four experiments, participants were asked to either generate answers to trivia questions before consulting the internet (thinking-before-googling), search for answers on the internet (googling-right-away), read questions and answers presented simultaneously (presented-with), or generate answers before being presented with answers (thinking-before-presented). Overall, thinking-before-googling led to better recall than did googling-right-away. Such a finding is striking in several respects, including that 81% of participants said they tended to immediately search the internet as opposed to thinking first.

That the internet makes it possible to look up needed information whenever and wherever we need that information has triggered interest among researchers in the potential costs, as well as benefits, of such ready access. One potential cost, given the evidence that people often “google” information before even trying to retrieve that information on their own, is robbing one’s self of the benefits of retrieval practice—that is, making the retrieved information more recallable from our own memories in the future. There is evidence, too, that even when initial attempts are wrong, trying to think about new information before googling can promote one’s subsequent learning of the correct information when it is accessed. We report four experiments designed to examine these and related memory dynamics. Participants were presented with trivia questions...