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What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

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Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#21

Post by locallost »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamus_(mythical_King_of_Egy...

> Thamus was a mythical Pharaoh of Upper Egypt, and appears in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus. According to the story told by Socrates in that dialogue, King Thamus received from the god Thoth the knowledge of writing, but decided not to use it too often, as he reckoned this will damage the ability to remember extensively.

There is no doubt "technology" changes us and the way we effectively are. But it's always been like this, and the people lamenting on it are doing it because that's how it was when they came into the world. People born now are coming into a different world, and they will not miss anything. So it goes.

Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#23

Post by psunavy03 »

jasode wrote: post #4

>As objects, paper tickets serve as proof of past lives long after their brief utility as proof of payment. I sat with my accidental time capsule for more than an hour, doing what my teenage self had probably hoped I might: linking each one to a buried memory as best I could. [...] But most of the tickets I’d bought myself, in person and almost always with cash, at box offices or the Ticketmaster counter at the local…

Depending on the quality of your audio equipment, some disks (Blu-Rays mainly) are a better experience audio-wise than streaming. So there is a point to some physical media beyond sentimentality, at least until streaming services up their audio game.

And I don't even consider myself an audiophile or feel a need to get snobby about it; it's just when I watched a movie on UHD Blu-Ray as opposed to streaming, I went "wow, you can really notice the sound quality."

Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#24

Post by kjkjadksj »

psunavy03 wrote: post #23
jasode wrote: post #4

>As objects, paper tickets serve as proof of past lives long after their brief utility as proof of payment. I sat with my accidental time capsule for more than an hour, doing what my teenage self had probably hoped I might: linking each one to a buried memory as best I could. [...] But most of the tickets I’d bought myself, in person and almost always with cash, at box offices or the Ticketmaster counter at the local…

Depending on the quality of your audio equipment, some disks (Blu-Rays mainly) are a better experience audio-wise than streaming. So there is a point to some physical media beyond sentimentality, at least until streaming services up their audio game. And I don't even consider myself an audiophile or feel a need to get snobby about it; it's just when I watched a movie on UHD Blu-Ray as opposed to streaming, I went "wo…

Also black levels that aren’t compressed to shit

Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#25

Post by kjkjadksj »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #12

I have nothing physical to show for the memories I made playing online games with friends. Almost none of the forums I used to post on exist anymore. I have nothing to show for nearly everything I did in life. But when my old friends and I are together, we still laugh about stories we tell about Halo 2 and the gaming we did together back then. The same way we still tell stories about that weird kid in 2nd grade and t…

Very rarely do people have any lasting thing from their youth even before electronic life. You’d have to be an early prodigy perhaps a writer or musician.

Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#26

Post by gnabgib »

Jotalea wrote: post #22

I've said this already but I'll repeat: articles that are locked behind a paywall, they simply suck. They take away my intention of reading the article.

> Complaints about paywalls are off topic, so please don't post them. The spirit of HN is to discuss specific articles and avoid generic rehashing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#27

Post by wantless »

locallost wrote: post #21

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamus_(mythical_King_of_Egy... > Thamus was a mythical Pharaoh of Upper Egypt, and appears in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus. According to the story told by Socrates in that dialogue, King Thamus received from the god Thoth the knowledge of writing, but decided not to use it too often, as he reckoned this will damage the ability to remember extensively. There is no doubt "technology" chang…

I wish to offer some gentle resistance to the notion that future generations will not miss anything. You can still feel the loss of something even without knowledge of the loss. Too many children are already missing out on the enriching vibrancy of unmediated experience. They feel it as anxiety and depression. Mental health statistics for our youth are disastrous. The adoption of each novel technology that replaces a former way of life involves a loss. This is not to say technology must never be adopted, but there is a trade-off. We should keep in mind what we are losing and what we gain from technology, and use that knowledge to inform the limits of our use.

Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#28

Post by creer »

dehrmann wrote: post #18
scosman wrote: post #8

> Because our phones are pulling from a huge, contextless pool There is so much context in your camera roll. So so much. Not all of it is understood yet, but it’s finally getting good. > The physical archives we amass in drawers or old shoe boxes aren’t free from the threat of bad memories or meaninglessness But they are oh so incomplete. You can dig through your shoebox of ticket stubs once an every few years at mos…

> They are also full of stuff you didn’t know would matter at the time but now does. I can't seem to find it, but there was a Hacker News post a few months ago about how to take photos you'll actually want to look at in a decade. Unstaged, ad-hoc, slice-of-life photos are the sort to take and keep.

Yes and this is one part I feel I still dont do enough. The phone (and associated deep storage) allow pics of all kinds of documents and pics to replace physical mementos. But we are still used to the idea of items that are somehow significant - which represent a trip or a day. And now we have space for more unscripted stuff. Someone was pointing out that there is no documentation of all their time spent in games. But there could be. There is now plenty enough space to retain some images, screenshots, videos. what's not here yet is some automation in us creating these records.

Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#29

Post by scosman »

dehrmann wrote: post #18
scosman wrote: post #8

> Because our phones are pulling from a huge, contextless pool There is so much context in your camera roll. So so much. Not all of it is understood yet, but it’s finally getting good. > The physical archives we amass in drawers or old shoe boxes aren’t free from the threat of bad memories or meaninglessness But they are oh so incomplete. You can dig through your shoebox of ticket stubs once an every few years at mos…

> They are also full of stuff you didn’t know would matter at the time but now does. I can't seem to find it, but there was a Hacker News post a few months ago about how to take photos you'll actually want to look at in a decade. Unstaged, ad-hoc, slice-of-life photos are the sort to take and keep.

Do that.

Also: set up a widget on your home screen that shows a bunch of random old photos. You won’t “find them”, you want them to find you. There will be misses but the hits will be worth it. Apple’s is decent (disclaimer: I made it). I like even more randomness as well so a complete shuffle is fun.

Re: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

#30

Post by tim333 »

I kind of find the opposite effect. My record in physical artifacts is very patchy - they get thrown out or I can't find them. But since using gmail and google photos, everything from around 2005 is preserved and searchable. I need to back it up though! Just looking it's 30,356 photos and 78,390 emails which would be a job to deal with in paper form.
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