by Sojin (Gloria) Noh
Ever since writing and printing emerged, memory has become less significant in daily life. With a flip of a book, or by a tap on the screen, one could find the information they need with ease. Information is everywhere — online or offline — constantly growing as we find ways to record events of all sizes as meticulously as possible. However, despite human knowledge piling up at such an exponential rate, it has not necessarily made us “smarter.”
According to the study by Betsy Sparrow in 2011, our memory may be on a steady decline. The aim of this study was to investigate “whether the Internet has become an external memory system that is primed by the need to acquire information.” Part of Sparrow’s experiments involved testing participants’ information retention after testing for a single factor — availability.
After providing participants with a book containing testing material and a computer to take notes on, half of the participants were told their notes would be erased. Results show that those who assumed their notes will not be available are able to retain trivial information more precisely compared to those who could go back and refer to their notes at any given time. Essentially, simply knowing one will be able to access information as needed is likely to lessen our focus when attempting to retain said information, leading to a subpar performance when remembering.
Luckily, the consequences of lower-performing memory have lesser consequences today. The significance of memory developed when life was not always as simple as it is today. Starting from ancient Greece, one area of study highly accredited to the Greeks is “mnemotechnics,” or the “art of memory.” The focus of it was on developing “artificial memory,” which is essentially pieces of “memory strengthened or confirmed by training.” It was used as a remedy to improve one’s “natural memory,” (which refers to information remembered as thought is processed) given that it is highly difficult to retain every passing detail in life.
Memory, as such, was important to the ancient Greeks who relied on lengthy speeches — most notably epics like the Odyssey and the Iliad — to communicate and pass down information through generations. Nowadays, with prints readily available both offline and online, a lack of memorization skills to such an extreme degree has no serious implications as long as literacy levels remain high. In a way, memory can be seen as an outdated concept.
Furthermore, in the sense of adaptation and efficiency, humans are doing well integrating into our changing environment. Demand for people with higher accumulation of knowledge is skyrocketing, yet there are limitations in most people when trying to cram so much into a single brain. However, in a realistic sense, we are already oversaturated with information. It is likely impossible to claim we are going to make immediate use of all information — after all, if we need it, we would remember it.
Thus, storage for the bare minimum of knowing where a piece of knowledge is can significantly save up memory space in our minds. Search engines like Google, where a couple of keywords can lead to a myriad of information in a systematized format, can be perceived as the ideal “external memory system.” Such external storage will always increase, be easy to access, and always available due to our ever-growing reliance on modern technology which will continue to restrain our natural ability to remember. Consequently, memory and true, “independent,” intellect will meet its end due to the illusion “Google” gives us as being an erudite.
