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Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

theguardian.com

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Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#81

Post by ChoGGi »

bentcorner wrote: post #73
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #6

Is your GPS ruining your spatial orientation skills? Etc. Etc. Most of these articles are pure clickbait designed to trick ageing people whose skills naturally degrade into an non-old-age related explanation for such degradation.

I love using Google Maps but I always use it with a North-up orientation with a 2-dimensional slightly-zoomed out view, so I can have context about where I am and where I'm going, so even though it's telling me where to go, I have an idea of the path I'm taking. I used to have a strong opinion that spell check was harmful, but I've relaxed on that somewhat. I wonder how language geeks feel about the recent rise of in…

"I always use it with a North-up orientation with a 2-dimensional slightly-zoomed out view"

Good idea, thanks.

Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#82

Post by usrn »

rr808 wrote: post #49

Memory is OK its the concentration. I just can't read a whole novel now, its too long. Sitting down and doing work is ridiculously hard to concentrate.

Walking around with a notebook (the paper kind, I like the small pocket sized ones with no rules so you can write music and draw things too) instead of a phone and then coming home and typing what you wrote into a computer is awesome. I wrote a memory allocator and a long form blog post while I was out the other day this way.

For a while I was writing a program to recognize a special kind of rune-like manuscript so the typing part is unnecessary but I realized it's less work to just sit down and type the stuff in. That's not too hard to get distracted from and it gives you way more flexibility.

Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#84

Post by em-bee »

when i was young i didn't like carrying a watch, because somehow i noticed that relying on a watch made loose my sense of time.

i don't know if it was my imagination, but i guess without a watch i was forced to pay more attention to my surroundings to see how much time has passed.

i still don't carry a watch, but now i carry a phone, so there is that...

Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#85

Post by mikewarot »

We could still all dial phone numbers by hand... now 10 digits instead of 7 in the US, now spread across all the area codes, instead of mostly local, but why?

If you dial wrong, you'll sometimes get an angry person wondering why you disturbed them, who now has your number, and surplus rage. That risk is too darned high for me to deal with, so I have about a handful of numbers I actually know.... Mom, Me, Wife, Home, Friend, and that's it. All the rest are written down in a few places, and never dialed by hand, ever.

On the other hand, I know how paper maps work, and can get anywhere in the US without relying on Google maps for real-time directions. (Though...really... traffic info is SO handy)

Thinking is expensive as is memorizing things, so if there's no benefit, we won't do it. Noticing that things have changed since you were a kid, can be shocking, but it's not a sign of permanent decline.

Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#86

Post by nicbou »

usrn wrote: post #82
rr808 wrote: post #49

Memory is OK its the concentration. I just can't read a whole novel now, its too long. Sitting down and doing work is ridiculously hard to concentrate.

Walking around with a notebook (the paper kind, I like the small pocket sized ones with no rules so you can write music and draw things too) instead of a phone and then coming home and typing what you wrote into a computer is awesome. I wrote a memory allocator and a long form blog post while I was out the other day this way. For a while I was writing a program to recognize a special kind of rune-like manuscript so t…

I upgraded my notebook to a disconnected iPad Mini with great results. The iPad is my read and write device. It's not for work or media consumption. It does not get notifications.

You're right, having just you and a blank page is a great way to work. I try to start the day with just coffee and my iPad. No internet.

Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#87

Post by nicbou »

blaze33 wrote: post #34

Personal anecdote, but one thing that I noticed last year while reorganizing all the digital photos I took over the last 17 years is how technological change shaped my digital archives and subsequently how well I remember my past. With my old dedicated digital camera and sd cards, I got nice folders with meaningful event names and dates and clear of the useless stuff not worth keeping around. Obviously, it required s…

My photo stream is a much better timeline than my well-organised photo collection. These pictures of food, acceptable landscapes, random dogs etc. describe my everyday life a lot better.

Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#88

Post by mateo1 »

WorldMaker wrote: post #53
gopher_space wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other way to look at it is that there was a sixty year span when memorizing many seven to ten digit numbers was important to us, and so that's exactly what we did. I didn't lose the ability to memorize entire books like my grandfather did, I'm just not isolated for months on end in winter like he was. It's also not the babe-attracting party trick it apparently used to be.

As I recall even Carl Sagan commented on it at depth (and how it was good thing). For as long as people have existed we've built tools to remember things for us so we can remember other things better/learn other skills. It was a "complaint" about paper, that writing things down softened our memory skills. (People would lament about the lost traditions of storytellers that had to memorize entire stories and pass them…

Paper is tangible, permanent and owned by you. Digital "memories" are rented, volatile and owned by someone else.

Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#89

Post by theshrike79 »

jrib wrote: post #63
theshrike79 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What helped me with reading was: 1) Read on a Kindle or any other e-ink reader. It's always just in the spot you left it in and it's light enough to carry around everywhere. I usually read while I eat and continue to the end of the chapter after I'm done eating. Try to open a book instead of Reddit/Instagram/Facebook/HN 2) Read something fun. You don't need to pick stuff that's super-deep or insightful or productive.…

One of my issues is grabbing the phone to kill time while waiting even for a small amount of time. Ordered a bagel? Let me grab my phone for the 2 minutes it takes for them to call my number. In an uber ride? Turn on the phone... Waiting for a deploy? Let me scroll through reddit a bit. I love the kindle, but reading a page at a time here and there isn't appealing to me, personally. Instead, I've been trying to make…

I actually took stress-management class at an old job. It was taught by 3 actual psychologists studying stress and it's effects on people.

The main thing I retained from that was that your body has power over your mind.

I, for example, tend to _always_ grab my phone when waiting for the elevator. Now, as per their instructions, I take 3 deep breaths first and then grab the phone.

It's amazing how much that changes the way you use it. You relax a bit and don't get the urge to doomscroll on Twitter or Reddit.

It also shows you how bad you are at breathing. Modern humans tend to breathe fast and shallow and it signals "emergency" to your body. Deep breathing or box breathing completely changes your mindset. No need to do any fancy mindfulness or meditation, just breathe.

Re: Is your phone ruining your memory? A report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’

#90

Post by [deleted] »

thenerdhead wrote: post #21

Nicholas Carr explains many different examples(wayfinding, maps, memory, etc) in his book “The Shallows”. There’s also that book “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer where the author becomes a memory champion by embodying themselves in the competition space having never practiced it prior. While we can put blame on technology for hurting our abilities to further form certain skills, it has also allowed us to le…

[deleted]
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