A new study confirms it: Google (GOOG) is altering your brain. More precisely, our growing dependence on the Internet has changed how — and what — our brains choose to remember.

When we know where to find information, we’re less likely to remember it — an amnesia dubbed The Google Effect by a team led by psychologist Betsy Sparrow of Columbia University. …

The finding, published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, doesn’t prove that Google, Yahoo (YHOO) or other search engines are making us dumber, as some have asserted. We’re still capable of remembering things that matter — and are not easily found online, Sparrow said.

Rather, it suggests that the human memory is reorganizing where it goes for information, adapting to new computing technologies rather than relying purely on rote memory. We’re outsourcing “search” from our brains to our computers.