[dead]
Study finds memory decline surge in young people
71–80 of 200 posts
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#72Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my late 30s. I no longer apologize to anyone for this lifestyle choice anymore since the benefits are something everyone deserves, but almost all opt out of today for made up reasons. I take photos with a pocket mirrorless, and take notes with a notebook. I tell tim…
So you not have extended family or friends in your daily social setting? Like this sounds awesome but being offline for 23 hours in the day is unmanageable here, unless you live a very solitary life.
> Like this sounds awesome but being offline for 23 hours in the day is unmanageable here, unless you live a very solitary life
Except when you are offline together.
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#73The AI writing here is so hard to read I honestly couldn’t finish the article. “It’s not X, it’s Y” is a turn of speech that has to be consciously removed from a polite society.
> consciously removed
Please retain this turn of speech that helps autonomic (carbon) and automated (silicon) filters.
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#74The surging decline in typewriters in the 90's had nothing to do with how bad typewriters were or how they were used. It's a symptom of society barrelling toward exponential progress more than a pathology imo
We're told not to feed the wildlife at parks and beaches because of the dangers when they become dependent on visitors for their food source. It changes their natural behavior to the extent that it becomes difficult to revert to natural food sources in the absence of visitors.
(there are other behavioral and disease-related dangers but they're not as appropriate to this metaphor)
I think the more alarmed voices in this comment thread are not reacting to the change or "exponential progress" but are instead concerned about the impact of becoming reliant on something else to do our remembering.
This last part is anecdata (but no worse than the survey data in TFA), I think smartphone users have not really lost the ability to memorize, in general, but that the things being memorized are different. If the memory test (mentioned in a cousin-comment) had a set of 20 memes instead of 20 words, I expect most study participants would be a lot better at recall.
I suppose the question of "is this like junk food, though?" may be relevant.
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#75Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my late 30s. I no longer apologize to anyone for this lifestyle choice anymore since the benefits are something everyone deserves, but almost all opt out of today for made up reasons. I take photos with a pocket mirrorless, and take notes with a notebook. I tell tim…
I love the sentiment, but some of us need to be reachable for work. I wonder if PagerDuty could be rigged up to work with actual pagers?
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#76Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my late 30s. I no longer apologize to anyone for this lifestyle choice anymore since the benefits are something everyone deserves, but almost all opt out of today for made up reasons. I take photos with a pocket mirrorless, and take notes with a notebook. I tell tim…
> I pay for things at stores with cash instead of tap to pay
Good luck living in London with cash. I guess a plastic credit cards is allowed
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#77> Those 4.5 million survey responses were gathered over a decade I'd feel more confident about the results of this research if it didn't entirely depend on self-reported data from a survey. At least in this case it was a phone survey and not just an internet questionnaire posted to social media sites. I'd put more faith in a much smaller sample of young people being professionally evaluated for memory problems. The s…
> diagnosed with it by a professional
Honestly, I wouldn't be sure how to answer some of the questions.
In a 15 minute doctor's appointment I was "diagnosed" and medicated for bipolar. In another 15 minute appointment with a psychiatrist, we added OCD and general anxiety as well.
We stopped medications shortly after and it has been 20 years.
There has been a lot of discussion about self diagnosis, but I have the opposite problem. How can you decide a diagnosis with 10 questions and some pills?
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#78Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my late 30s. I no longer apologize to anyone for this lifestyle choice anymore since the benefits are something everyone deserves, but almost all opt out of today for made up reasons. I take photos with a pocket mirrorless, and take notes with a notebook. I tell tim…
I love the sentiment, but some of us need to be reachable for work. I wonder if PagerDuty could be rigged up to work with actual pagers?
Pagers take SMS. The problem is finding modern pager service.
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#79Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my late 30s. I no longer apologize to anyone for this lifestyle choice anymore since the benefits are something everyone deserves, but almost all opt out of today for made up reasons. I take photos with a pocket mirrorless, and take notes with a notebook. I tell tim…
Last Monday in a fit of exasperation I turned my phone into airplane mode. And that's where I left it, for an entire week. I swear this was the most productive week of work I've ever had in my professional career. It's astonishing. On the weekend I wanted to call my mom and yet I dreaded taking it off airplane mode. I'm going to try doing this for the foreseeable future.
Re: Study finds memory decline surge in young people
#80Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my late 30s. I no longer apologize to anyone for this lifestyle choice anymore since the benefits are something everyone deserves, but almost all opt out of today for made up reasons. I take photos with a pocket mirrorless, and take notes with a notebook. I tell tim…
> Whenever I see parents scrolling, and handing a kid a phone as well to pacify them, I wish I could report them for child abuse.
Consider that you might not have everything figured out for everyone. I'm glad you found something that works, but the will to impose your way on others isn't benevolent.