Whenever you come across an informative article or video, what do you usually do?
A: Dive into the knowledge right away and consume it while it's hot!
B: Great, into my bookmarks to gather dust it goes!
If you chose A, congratulations, you have a great habit.
If you chose B, congratulations as well, you've become one of the many "digital hoarders."
Digital hoarders are those who love to accumulate digital information. In today's internet era, almost everyone has collected some online resources they can't bear to miss, often organizing them neatly for future reference or a later read. This phenomenon is known as "digital hoarding syndrome" among netizens.
Don't believe it? Take a quick look at your bookmarks on various websites and apps now. Within ten seconds, you might find yourself saying, "When did I bookmark this?"
Why do we enjoy saving useful online resources but often end up neglecting them? How can we effectively utilize the valuable information we've saved? Let's explore these questions together today.
Completed = Finished? Fooling oneself is the easiest
The reason why we easily forget articles or videos we once bookmarked is actually due to a well-known memory effect in psychology: the Zeigarnik effect. This effect states that people tend to remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones. In other words, we are more likely to forget things we believe we have already finished.
This effect was first discovered by Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik in a memory experiment. In the experiment, 47 volunteers were asked to complete 22 simple tasks, such as writing a favorite poem, stringing beads, or counting, but only half of the tasks were allowed to be completed, while the other half were interrupted midway.
The results of the experiment showed that people had better memory of unfinished tasks, with an average recall rate of 68%, compared to only 43% for completed tasks.
When we come across an excellent article but don't have time to read it thoroughly, or stumble upon a very useful instructional video but haven't had the chance to practice it yet, "reading the article" or "putting it into practice" becomes an unfinished task for us.
Imagine having some pending tasks in your mind that you haven't completed yet, don't you feel uneasy? However, the action of "bookmarking" helps us ease our minds, because when we think of bookmarking as a method, our mindset subtly shifts, turning the unfinished task into "bookmarking the article/video." Thus, bookmarking gives us a sense of closure, creating an illusion in our brain that the task is already completed.
At this point, the Zeigarnik effect comes into play, prompting the brain to initiate the forgetting process: "Since all these tasks have ended with bookmarking, why should I remember them? I might as well forget about them and focus on other things!"
Having bookmarked something equals having learned it? Knowledge: Wishful Thinking
For digital hoarding syndrome, there's an intriguing explanation that suggests we truly believe that when knowledge goes into our bookmarks, it's as if it's entered our own minds.
This explanation is based on the Theory of Goal Pursuit in cognitive psychology, which posits that the human brain is inherently goal-oriented. It not only continues to focus on existing goals but also unconsciously seeks a goal even in aimless situations.
So, even when we're mindlessly scrolling through our phones, our brains are still active, constantly finding things to do.
However, in today's era of information overload on the internet, how can our brains have the energy to pursue so many goals simultaneously when we occasionally stumble upon useful information?
Our brains are smarter than we think. They might handle this in two ways: either not consider it a goal, with your inner dialogue being something like, "Forget it, I'm too lazy. Even though it's useful, I won't do it." Or they might find a very simple and easy way to achieve these goals. And what's the easiest way to accomplish a goal?
That's right, by bookmarking it.
Imagine seeing a very useful educational video but not having time to watch it right then. So, you decide to bookmark it for later. In that moment, are you thinking, "Let me bookmark it now, and I'll watch it and learn later when I'm free"? This thought actually forms a simple action plan in the brain.
With such a simple action plan, our cognitive investment in unfinished goals decreases, and the brain stops continuously focusing on that goal. The result is that we quickly forget the existence of that educational video.
Psychological researchers Masicampo & Baumeister in 2011 used a series of experiments to prove this theory. They divided 68 university student volunteers into three groups: goal group, planning group, and control group. They set achieving good grades in the final exam two weeks later as the goal. People who deemed the goal unimportant were placed in the control group, while those who considered it important were evenly distributed between the goal and planning groups.
Next, the control group had to describe their usual activities and what they planned to do in the coming weeks. The goal group had to explain why the final exam was important, while the planning group had to create a detailed study plan for the final exam, specifying when and where they would revise what content.
Finally, the researchers used a word completion task to assess the volunteers' focus on the exam goal. If a group filled in more exam-related words in the task, it indicated that they maintained a higher and more sustained level of attention on the goal, meaning their cognitive investment was higher.
The results showed that the planning group filled in significantly fewer exam-related words compared to the goal group, and there was no difference from the control group. This suggests that making a plan can reduce people's cognitive investment in a particular goal, making it easier to postpone that goal. (Of course, this doesn't mean planning isn't important; the key is still in execution).
This validates the saying: "What's the difference between knowledge in my bookmarks and knowledge in my mind?"
How can we prevent our bookmarks from gathering dust?
We save useful resources in our bookmarks with the intention of improving ourselves during idle moments or enriching our lives. Therefore, bookmarks are a very useful tool. The following methods may help you make better use of the bookmark feature and prevent it from gathering dust:
There are many resources online that are useful to us. However, if we indiscriminately bookmark all useful resources without filtering, we end up treating our bookmarks as a storage warehouse rather than a tool for learning. It is recommended to only bookmark knowledge that is truly valuable to oneself and likely to be put into practice, thus reducing the amount of information to be processed.
Many people already have bookmarks that have been gathering dust for a long time, containing resources that, while useful, are no longer relevant. It's time to declutter your bookmarks, delete resources that are no longer needed, and keep only those that are still valuable to you, allowing yourself to gradually digest this knowledge.
For both newly bookmarked resources and those retained after decluttering, we can create a series of study plans for them, specifying when to study what content. We can also use mobile apps to remind ourselves to complete the study plan on time. The purpose of planning is to free ourselves from thinking about too many things at once, enabling us to focus on the present rather than letting the learning tasks simply gather dust on our to-do list.
Based on your actual situation, set a regular review cycle for yourself, such as dedicating a weekend each month to review your bookmarks, clean out unnecessary resources, and create suitable study plans for valuable bookmarked resources. Well, after reading this article, why not bookmark it quickly...
References
[1] Seifert, C. M., & Patalano, A. L. (1991). Memory for incomplete tasks: A re-examination of the Zeigarnik effect.
[2] Moskowitz, G. B. (2002). Preconscious effects of temporary goals on attention. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38(4), 397-404.
[3] Masicampo, E. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2011). Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101(4), 667.
