When you can find a phone number with the swipe of a finger or resolve an argument with a quick trip to Google, why would you need to remember anything?

A new report from Kaspersky Lab calls this phenomenon 'digital amnesia'. It surveyed over 1,000 consumers across the US and finds that 91 percent of them say they use the Internet as an online extension of their brain.

Almost half (44 percent) say that their smartphone holds almost everything they need to know or recall. There's a downside to this though as the study also shows that losing personal data -- such as pictures of your children, vacation videos or someone's phone number -- causes immense distress, particularly among women and people under 35.

Odd then that many Americans are failing to adequately protect the devices they’re so reliant on. Just one in three installs extra IT security, such as anti-virus software on their smartphone, and only one in five adds any security to their tablet.

"Connected devices enrich our lives every day, but they have also caused the prevalence of Digital Amnesia in our country. As consumers, it is important for all of us to understand the long term implications of this effect, and why it reinforces the need for us to diligently protect our valuable information and precious memories," says Chris Doggett, managing director of Kaspersky Lab North America. "By conducting this study, Kaspersky Lab is able to shed further light on how consumers are using and depending on their devices, and armed with this information, we will continue our mission to raise public awareness about the importance of using technology to protect our digital lives".

Despite the fact that we depend heavily on our devices it seems we can remember some things. When asked, most participants could phone the house they lived in aged 15 (67.4 percent) as well as their partners (69.7 percent), children (34.5 percent), and place of work (45.4 percent). However, they'd be unable to call their siblings (44.2 percent), friends (51.4 percent), or neighbors (70.0 percent) without first looking up the number.

It seems that digital amnesia is a growing trend among people of all ages, not just younger 'digital natives'. The long term implication of storing less in our heads is that we need to take steps to protect the stuff we no longer bother to remember.

The full report is available on the Kaspersky Lab site and there's a summary of the findings in infographic form below.

Image Credit: PathDoc / Shutterstock