Social remembering in the digital age: Implications for virtual study, work, and social engagement

Abstract

Technology has transformed how people interact with one another. According to two recent Pew Research Center surveys (2021a; 2021b), 97 per cent of United States adults have a cell phone, 85 per cent have a smartphone, 93 per cent use the Internet, and 77 per cent have broadband Internet access at home. The Internet has opened countless doors by providing unprecedented access to information and connecting people. While we know from laboratory research that context and collaboration can influence memory, little is known about how virtual collaboration affects memory and whether in-person studies generalise to virtual contexts. In this article, we discuss the challenges, value, and broader relevance of extending laboratory-based memory research to online platforms. In doing so, we report a virtual collaborative memory paradigm, where we examine individual and social remembering in a fully online, chat-based setting, and present data from two completely virtual experiments. In Experiment 1, online participants studied a word list and, in a chatroom, recalled the words either alone (as controls) or with two other participants. Surprisingly, collaborative inhibition – the robust finding of lower recall in collaborative groups than controls – disappeared. This outcome occurred because participants who worked alone recalled less than what we see in in-person studies. In Experiment 2, where instructions were modified and an experimenter was present, individual performance improved, resulting in collaborative inhibition. We reflect on the contextualised nature of this effect in online settings, for both collaborative and individual remembering, and on the implications for the study of memory in the digital age.

Collective memory: Collaborative recall synchronizes what and how people remember

“…In the current review, we focus on the application of the collaborative memory paradigm, which we describe in detail in a later section. For the current purposes, one key asset of the collaborative memory paradigm is that much of the methodological infrastructure is already in place; the paradigm includes the key procedural components necessary for assessing collective memory and collective retrieval organization in a variety of contexts (Congleton & Rajaram, 2014; Greeley et al, 2022, in Press). However, this is not to say that other empirical frameworks are unable or cannot be adapted to address questions relating to collective memory and collective retrieval organization.…”

“…So far, studies of collective memory have focused primarily on documenting effects rather than explaining them, as empirical data are needed to ignite theorizing (Murdock, 1985). But now, with data in hand, there are robust effects to explain, for example, greater collective memory/collective retrieval organization following group collaboration compared to conditions where there is no collaboration (Barber et al, 2012;Choi et al, 2014Choi et al, , 2017Greeley et al, 2022;Harris et al, 2008). How can theories and models from the individual side help with this task?…”

“…Research on individual retrieval organization is very much rooted in basic memory paradigms that concentrate on the individual (Crowder, 1976/2014; Murphy & Puff, 1982). While the methods employed in studies of collective memory are quite variable (Beim, 2007; Rajaram, 2022; Wertsch & Roediger, 2008), a widely used method in cognitive research—the collaborative memory paradigm—is well suited to the assessment of retrieval organization (Basden et al, 1997; Choi et al, 2014; Congleton & Rajaram, 2014; Greeley et al, 2022; Rajaram, 2022; Weldon & Bellinger, 1997). Such experiments are procedurally flexible and allow for staging controlled social interactions in tandem with basic procedures (e.g., encoding and retrieval of word lists).…”

“…On the one hand, even though the studies on this topic are sparse, research on collaborative memory has been concerned with retrieval organization from the beginning, drawing inspiration from related paradigms and effects (e.g., Basden et al, 1997). Likewise, a handful of collective memory studies have examined how individuals come to recall the same material and in a similar fashion (Congleton & Rajaram, 2014; Greeley et al, 2022). On the other hand, considering retrieval organization in social contexts is not without challenges, considering the narrative nature that often characterizes collective remembering and the need for experimental paradigms that can identify the mechanisms that can explain such phenomena.…”

“…Specifically, collective retrieval organization refers to the extent to which members of a group have synchronized retrieval strategies . This merger of collective memory and retrieval organization is rather new, and to the best of our knowledge, only a handful of studies have assessed this explicitly (Congleton & Rajaram, 2014; Greeley et al, 2022). At the same time, the general concept is a familiar one.…”