I Don’t Remember Pagers Making People Dumber

Justin Houston
Jul 24, 2017 · 3 min read

I know we live in the age of information. Supercomputers are just waiting in our pockets to unleash torrents of knowledge.

It mostly just gets on my nerves.

I am just old enough to remember the unique pain of having a memory right on the tip of your brain, but beyond your reach.

Remember the days before everyone had a smartphone? You were on your own.

Sure, you could poll friends and neighbors. But the biggest ally you had if you couldn’t verify something with printed evidence was your great friend, Mr. Subconcious.

Mr. Subconcious does a lot more than dredge up memories of when you may or may not have been molested by the bicycle shop owner [Diff’rent Strokes: “The Bicycle Man” episodes].

He’s there to assist you. The pistons keep pumping beneath the surface when you step away from an idea or thought.

I miss the good ol’ days for a few reasons:

1. Having to probe the depths of your memory is good for you.

You had to know stuff because information wasn’t right at your fingertips. Today, I wonder if we feel the need to “know” things since we have the built in excuse that anything can be “googled.” These moments of anguish as you try to rack your brain are character building. And they force your intellect to work. [Here is where I thank my mom for spending money, that we didn’t really have, on World Book Encyclopedias.]

2. Not having information right at hand made life more lively.

Perfect fodder for debates. Guys spent years of their lives in sports bars debating inane sports facts that could not be verified (unless the bar had a very specific almanac from 1974). Our brains had to work. Even if we were wrong with the facts — we concocted brilliantly entertaining lies. Kids today don’t get to enjoy these difficulties.

SOMETIMES A MEMORY OR A THOUGHT JUST NAGS AT YOU

Maybe you remember something from your childhood, but you don’t have enough to really give Google adequate search terms.

Just this past week, I needed my subconcious to come up with an important answer to a question that mattered only to me.

I was thinking, when a memory struck me out of the blue — a cartoon from my youth.

I couldn’t remember it at all. I knew it was a family of mouse like humans that lived in a house with real humans. Yet, the title escaped me.

After a week of marinating on it — I spit it out to my wife in the middle of the day.

“THE LITTLES!”

Am I the only weird bastard that remembers these things?

Yeah, I am a freak.

But I felt a weird sense of accomplishment that my brain could pull a weird bit from a dark corner and bring it to the light.

It’s good to know stuff. Even silly stuff. You never know when you may need that bit of trivia or sliver of slightly accurate historical knowledge.

Information is more accessible today, but I’m not sure it has leveled the playing field. Those of us who know things still have an advantage. Many people can’t find information even with it so accessible.

The times and technology have changed, but maybe some things shouldn’t.

As for me, I have a creepy little cartoon about mouse people to binge watch.

The Ascent

A community of storytellers documenting the journey to happiness & fulfillment.

Justin Houston

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Writer, Teacher, Comedian…

The Ascent

A community of storytellers documenting the journey to happiness & fulfillment.

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