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Are we running out of memory?

  2. jcharney
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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.
jcharney

8 responses // Are we running out of memory?

  • I don't think it's a memory issue. I think that it's simply that we've offloaded a lot of what used to be in our heads into devices like our phones and Trios. Why both having to remember it if it's always in your hand? Not that I'm saying this is a good thing...but rather I think it's a new reality. I am still old school enough to remember my phone number we had from 1st-6th-grade (714-832-4184) and tend to know the numbers I dial on a regular basis.

    And for the flingin-flangin life of me I can never remember my mom's birthday...it's either the 10th or 11th. Why? I'll never know.
    hollyg
  • Holly, I would tend to agree with you in thinking this is not a bad thing, just a different thing. The only part of the article where the author made me think the offloading might be problematic was this:

    "Still, I have nagging worries. Sure, I'm a veritable genius when I'm on the grid, but am I mentally crippled when I'm not? Does an overreliance on machine memory shut down other important ways of understanding the world?

    There's another type of intelligence that comes not from rapid-fire pattern recognition but from slowly ingesting and retaining a lifetime's worth of facts. You read about the discoveries of Madame Curie and the history of the countries bordering Iraq. You read War and Peace. Then you let it all ferment in the back of your mind for decades, until, bang, it suddenly coalesces into a brilliant insight."
    jcharney
  • I agree with hollyg. Offload that s, man.

    Einstein said something like, "I don't know my phone number, but I know where I can look it up." And he was talking about a phonebook. Or maybe some sort of early handset. He was wicked smart so he might have had one.
    natedern
  • Actually I didn't say it was a good thing...I said I didn't necessarily think it was good but it is the way it is today. I'm shocked at how helpless we are when we lose our phones...and I was downright useless the week my dsl was out. I still read books, man...books! With paper!
    hollyg
  • I'd like to know more about the study... do younger people show less ability to remember newly-presented items of that nature? how about less culturally-meaningful chunks of information? now that would possibly be interesting...
    klenga
  • Very good point klenga... statistics can be skewed or easily manipulated. I don't believe this particular study is intentionally insinuating that younger people have less capacity for memory, just the specifics of what a younger person may be inclined to remember based on their environment. More thought needs to be put into a study of this sort... generalizations based on poorly planned research has clouded the perceptions of America for far too long.
    Hiway
  • They've found that cultures that use way less technology (including books) have better memory use. They have no other way to remember things like family lines, mythology/religion, the proper way to do thinks like grow crops, etc etc etc. This probably follows for older generations. They didn't have the internet, heck they didn't have computers. They used their brains to remember phone numbers, important dates, special events, etc. Younger people don't have to force their brains to retain information. Why should you waste the energy when you have google and wikipedia, your cell phone/blackberry/ whatever right on hand, and a culture that seems to put the ignorant on a pedastal? (oops! a little ranty there) We aren't forcing our brains to remember things anymore, but we aren't getting dumber, we just have out of shape brains.
    Frixxy
  • i think its mostly because the younger generation relies on things like cell phones more than older generations and honestly, i dont think younger people care about birthdays and stuff like that as much as older people....not me though....but technology does mess with the younger generation...weve become completely dependent on cell phones laptops PDAs ect.
    cerci_girl

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