One of the many things on which I pride myself is my memory. No, not the sweet 768MB of RAM inside the beast of a machine on which I’m writing this piece, but my actual ability to remember things, things ranging from telephone numbers to IP addresses to the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English to a seemingly endless supply of questionably useful minutiae, all inside my head. Always a huge nerd, I would gauge how drunk I was in college by my ability to recall the quadratic equation. Friends were often taken aback by my ability to recollect conversations from years prior. I even parlayed my memory into a spot on Jeopardy! I always liked that I had this trait, and am to this day confused and frustrated by people do who are forgetful or just don’t take the time and effort to try to remember important details. And I am becoming increasingly concerned that a good number of people have simply given up trying to remember at all and have outsourced this important brain function to their computers, cell phones and favorite web sites.

I am a huge fan of tools, both in and of themselves, as well, and more importantly, for what they allow me to do easier, better, more efficiently. I am equally happy to have the use of my meat grinder/sausage stuffer as I am my computer with high-speed internet connection, as these tools allow me to perform tasks that I wouldn’t otherwise been able to do, namely, make delicious sausage and write and share fascinating posts such as this. As I said, I am a fan of tools for what they help me do, but not because they actually do everything for me. I am a DIY kind of person, which is why I’ve taught myself several skills ranging from writing html to making the best damn bbq sauce there is from scratch to playing the bass. I like doing stuff, and knowing how to do stuff. So, while I love my computer, I don’t want it to do everything for me, and I especially don’t want it, or my cell phone, to be the sole source of my memory of things like phone numbers, appointments, people’s names and the like. However, this is an area where I see that people are not using computers as tools but as a fully outsourced method of memory. The difference is, as opposed to a mnemonic device, the computer (contact/calendar application, cell phone address book, Facebook telling you that it’s your brother’s birthday today), is not helping you remember, it’s actually doing the remembering for you.

In an article originally posted in Wired Magazine in October, 2007, author Clive Thompson noted this piece of research:

This summer, neuroscientist Ian Robertson polled 3,000 people and found that the younger ones were less able than their elders to recall standard personal info. When Robertson asked his subjects to tell them a relative’s birth date, 87 percent of respondents over age 50 could recite it, while less than 40 percent of those under 30 could do so. And when he asked them their own phone number, fully one-third of the youngsters drew a blank. They had to whip out their handsets to look it up.

Reading something like this makes me sad, especially the part about the 33% of younger people that could not remember their own phone number, but it is also very telling in terms of the relationship between adoption of and reliance on technology for brain functions like memory. Obviously, people over 50 have had less time with tools like cell phones and computers, and resultantly, have learned to rely more on their brains and other analog methods for memory, whereas younger people, who’ve had this technology at their disposal for most of their lives, do not. Another point Mr. Thompson notes in his article:

You could argue that by offloading data onto silicon, we free our own gray matter for more germanely “human” tasks like brainstorming and daydreaming.

I take issue with this statement. Speaking only for myself, I do not find this to be true at all. In fact, I find the converse to be true: The fact that I am able to remember things well, and vividly, actually allows me to brainstorm and daydream even better given the cache of information from which I can readily draw. Further, I have yet to find anyone (this is not to say that they don’t exist, just not in my circle of acquaintances), who is so plugged in that their plugged-inedness allows them to be more creative or, as the author states, to focus on more “human” tasks.

So, while I do have numbers stored in my phone book on my cell phone, I try not to use that feature and instead actually type in the numbers myself. It’s exercise. I was also recently quite taken aback, when I was setting up a new computer for my mom some weeks ago, that she cringed in horror at the prospect that her browser bookmarks would somehow be lost in the transition. I may be in the minority, but I don’t think I’ve ever bookmarked a site in my life, preferring instead to actually type out URLs. Sounding odd is it might, but I find it to be a more visceral experience, and one that enhances my interaction with the tools I use. But I digress…

I am not saying that the technology of remembrance is a wholesale bad thing. For instance, the ability to post and share photos on Flickr enables the enhancement of memories I have by going back to look at pictures from Christmas, or the birth of my son. Another interesting use of technology in the realm of memory is the careful placement of electrodes that can rekindle lost memories even 30 years past, as was mentioned in this piece broadcast last night on NPR. But, like any technology or tool, I would advise in taking stock on your reliance upon it, especially when they go away. I was never so acutely reminded of this fact than during the massive blackouts in Fall of 2003, when I had no electricity for 27 hours, on the hottest day of the year, in a 3rd floor apartment of a 3 story building in Brooklyn. It was awful. So, what happens when you lose your phone, your internet connection goes down, or your hard drive crashes? Will you be ok?