Comments on: Google is destroying your memory

By: JBQuigs

JBQuigs — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:37:34 +0000

As I understand it, there is a school of thought that going back to Biblical times, and even into the medieval period, that so few people could actually read that many people were simply better at remembering things. The line of thinking being that if someone didn’t have the ‘crutch’ of having something written down to read later, then the brain would be forced into remembering things on its own.

A more recent example of this is the cell phone: because we can simply click on someones name, as opposed to manually dialing their number, we aren’t forced to actually remember their numbers. This usually becomes inconvenient if/when the phone’s battery dies // no signal // what-have-you.

I can really only remember 2-3 numbers off the top of my head. At least I have everyone’s numbers on hard-copy in the event my phone dies/breaks on me again . . .

By: card54

card54 — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:48:10 +0000

…learned how to look things up…

By: card54

card54 — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:47:11 +0000

Is this not a phenomenon that began with scribing, or even earlier with the recognition that experienced elders and topically focused experts were themselves transitive memory tools for the rest of us? The first transitive memory tool I can recall and recognize as such was our 1965 World Book Encyclopedia. I was amazed at the volume of information I could find in those volumes, once I know how to look things up!

“Looking things up” has become the default for most of the information we do not deal with on a regular basis. If that is the case, then indexing information resources becomes a much more important cognitive function than storing primary information. Even with Google, many of us have our “go to” Internet resources that have proven reliability and authority.

Barring the apocalypse, we are now able to find vastly larger amounts of information than ever before. I’m curious as to what changes our cognitive processes have undergone in light of this use of “second order” knowing, or knowing where to find knowledge.

By: michaeltristan

michaeltristan — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 17:43:01 +0000

losing my humanity to a machine bit by bit. Where will I draw the line? How far do I let the machine in?… I’ve been typing for so long now, I can no longer write in cursive and was painfully reminded of that upon receiving a letter from a dear old friend and early mentor. I wanted to cry when I pulled the envelope from the box, first because it was so beautiful – a sacred object that clearly wore his mark and spoke of who he is as a person; second wave of tears were of shame, taking personal stock and realising I could barely form print that was legible, cursive but a distant memory. Never had the chance to take on any personality enough to represent me. Google is not the problem, we are. Time to re-define what it means to be human.

By: thinkahol

thinkahol — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 04:01:46 +0000

see David Brin’s Disputation Arenas for ideas for creating a pruning process in our most important platform for collective understanding (the web).

By: Mentalyptis

Mentalyptis — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:04:11 +0000

^ Did you already forget? :S

By: geekette

geekette — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:07:30 +0000

Wow. This is a GREAT article. Thank you so much Dr. Editor for this piece. It not only makes a hugely important social-technical observation, but gives a number of links that are actually helpful! NICE WORK. I will try using lifelapse as a way to deal with a bully who has been bothering me. :)

By: Khannea Suntzu

Khannea Suntzu — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:28:56 +0000

Uhm what?