Outsourcing the Sacred: Cognitive Offloading, Digital Amnesia, and the Erosion of Scripture Internalization in the Christian Life

Abstract

“I just don’t wonder anymore.” Those words crystallize a concerning cultural shift: the erosion of curiosity and imagination in an age of instant answers. This thesis examines how the pervasive use of digital technology, through excessive cognitive offloading and the resulting digital amnesia, threatens Christians’ capacity to internalize Scripture. Drawing on two groundbreaking studies in cognitive science research—Daniel Wegner’s “Transactive Memory” and Betsy Sparrow’s “Google Effects on Memory”—this paper demonstrates that when information is easily accessible externally, our minds will prioritize where to find the information over the content of the information itself. Applied to our lives of faith, this means that Christians know how to search for Bible passages but fail to have them in their own minds. God commands his people to have his Word written on their hearts, not stored on their devices. To fight back against the ease of offloading God’s Word, this paper suggests methods of memorization and immersion, resulting in being equipped by God for temptation, suffering, and evangelism.