Computers Take away some of the need for memory

In My Humble Opinion
1

I started noticing shortly after we started using computers at work that I no longer remembered things. Things I had routinely remembered like part numbers and specifications on trucks I no longer remembered no matter how often I used them. I find I have very little use for remembering anything anymore but the basic living things I do. Most of the time this is fine but it carries over into things that crop up in conversations like names of celebrities or titles to songs or movies. It seems almost like the memory chip in my brain has been shut off. Is this old age or is it a common thing?

On the plus side I feel my brain is a lot less cluttered and better able to deal with complex concepts that may stretch out over weeks or days. I know I can go to my computer for details and just use my brain for the conceptualizing.

2

There have been many articles over the last 10 years or so about how computers are changing how we think. (Most such authors think that it’s a bad thing.)

I once read an SF story that took this concept to the extreme. Nobody could remember anything, not even faces of friends and relatives. A person would query their “smartphone-thingy” and ask, “Who am I talking to?” And the device would answer “Your mother,” or something like that.

This sort of dependence is fine up to a point, precisely because it frees up the mind for other things, but of course the more heavily dependent you are, the worse off you are when a glitch/malfunction inevitably occurs. Witness all the “old people” rants about cashiers who no longer know how to manually count back change when the register goes down.

3

While age surely plays a factor, I don’t think it’s the case here. I think it’s more likely that with how fast you can come up with what you need, you’ve never had to memorize these numbers like you once had to. I do most of the book keeping for my store and when chit chatting with another business owner he’ll sometimes give me a hard time because I don’t know, off the top of my head what my payroll percentage is or how much I’m up or down in some category this week/month/quarter/year over the previous one. I usually just tell them that there’s no reason for me to memorize all that stuff when I can pull it up in, literally, seconds.

Similarly, ask just about anyone under 25 how to get somewhere and they’ll be clueless without their phone/GPS. I was asking one of my employees about what exit she got off to get to school and she had exactly zero idea. She’s been making this commute back and forth, one or two times each week for a year now and she told me (this week) that without her phone she couldn’t do it. I understand needing it the first few times, but she’s probably made the round trip well over 50 times now. I’ve been to that school, it’s about an hour away, but a very easy drive. On the freeway, off the freeway, drive through some cornfields and you’re there. But when you’ve never had to learn, you never learn. Back in my day for a drive that easy someone told you before you left or you’d write it down on some paper. A few times back and forth and you knew how to get there since you were forced to learn it. In fact, my phone doesn’t integrate with my car very well so I still do that and I still tend to learn longer drives on the first or second shot and have them memorized.

So, TLDR, my working theory is that you’re not memorizing them because you don’t need to, not because you can’t.

TLDR2; “kids today” aren’t dumb, they rely on technology because it’s available. If it disappeared (or was set back 30 years), they’d adapt just fine.

4

ETA, going back to the GPS thing. I have some kids (about 25ish) that are so reliant on a GPS that even in Milwaukee, where we’re set up with a grid system, I can (have to) give them very detailed directions to get to a address like 2323 S 124th Ave or 4500 W Santa Monica Blvd, and I’ll see them punch it into their GPS as they get into their car, fine whatever. Then the next day I can give them an address literally a block away (ie 2400 s 124th St or 4623 W Santa Monica Blvd) and just saying “Same as last week, just the next block over” and…nothing. They can’t even picture what I mean. They’re starting over at zero. The address goes into the GPS and the take off. Oh, and the handful of times the GPS is wrong and they call me, that’s always fun, I love getting to say ‘would you just look out the window and check an address’…‘ffs you’re two blocks away, keep driving’. /end rant.

5

I am perfectly able to get around using a map. I can drive to every destination I’ve ever been from memory.

However I will not start the car without punching my destination into the gps. Life is too short to stand in traffic the gps would have avoided.
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6

Both.

7

Does reading and writing have the same effect on memory? If someone lived in an illiterate society, would they have to develop stronger memory techniques since they wouldn’t be writing down reminders?

8

I used to keep a lot of phone numbers in my head. It didn’t seem difficult, the rote of dialing them reinforced the memory. Now I know my own cell number, and that’s it. I’m in trouble without my phone or my computer to look them up.

9

Actually, historically, there were at last some that made that claim.

And I think I do recall a more recent study on memory and information in computer files. People didn’t remember the info in the files as much, but instead devoted memory into knowing where to find that information. Can’t find that one at the moment, though, so don’t take me at my word.

10

Yes.

That’s one of the reasons for things like rhyme in poetry and song lyrics - it helps a person remember the words.

11

I see what you did there.

What you are describing is well known and has been studied frequently. Here is one such example.

12

I find it a little hard to believe that after making the drive once or twice a week she actually can’t do it without the GPS - but I find it very easy to believe that she prefers to use the GPS (which will give her traffic information) or that she has no idea of the name or number of the exit she gets off. I drive mostly the same way to work everyday- but I couldn’t tell you the name of most of the streets I drive on. I couldn’t tell you the name or number of any of the highway exits closest to my house - because I don’t need to know the name or number. I just need to recognize the exit when I am approaching it. And I don’t necessarily mean recognize the scenery around it - it’s possible for me to see the sign for the Atlantic Avenue* exit and know that’s where I get off even if half-an hour earlier , I wasn’t able to tell you that.

  • I *think *one of the highways near my house has an Atlantic Avenue exit - but I’ll be damned if I know which one.
13

Everything I’ve read or heard, supports that each person has a certain physiology-based ability to think and recall things. There are wide variations in every aspect of that ability to remember, including much more than just the TYPE of information. Some people are naturally better at recognizing and remembering SPACIAL relationships, for example, while others are better at remembering abstract information, such as names.

Parallel to that, is the PROCESSES involved with remembering. People vary in those, as well. Some people can only memorize things they’ve written down repeatedly, others have to care emotionally about the information to be able to retain it, and so on.

From what I’ve seen and directly experienced, the number one reason why many people have a harder time remembering things that they log into their electronic support device, isn’t because they don’t HAVE TO remember it (though that plays a part), so much as it is that they actually NEVER LOOK AT IT TO BEGIN WITH.

When someone gave me a phone number in the “old days,” and I wrote it into my LBB, even then, I couldn’t remember the NUMBER. What I remembered, was the book itself, and the physical experience of writing the number as I thought about why I was writing it. Now that I enter numbers into my phone, I have the exact same experience. I remember the act of tapping, not the number. So my own ability to remember information hasn’t changed (yet). Back then, I didn’t memorize the number until I had dialed it repeatedly, as I read it back from the LBB. The reason why the same process doesn’t work with a cell phone, is that the cell phone now does the “dialing,” so I STILL never look at the number.

The emotional reactions some people have to the shifts that take place in society with changes in technology, are an entirely separate issue.  The reason why may people want to blame the technology, and even to proclaim that modern people are LAZY or otherwise defective, is due to common and unrelated social habits and fads and forces.