Memory

Some thoughts this morning on memory…

A Boston Globe article last week commented on the problems arising from the virtually limitless “memory” of our digital age, allowing all of our indiscretions and mis-steps to survive forever in cyberspace – and to be easily indexed and retrieved. As librarians and researchers, of course, this is great. But as “normal people” (I use this merely for lack of a better term :-) there are advantages to amnesia.

The article discusses the concept of “data ecology” where companies collecting and holding certain types of data would be required to delete it after certain periods have expired. While protection of personal privacy rights are always important, this solution seems a little heavy-handed to me. The article also suggests two other possible paths out of the problem. First, people are going to develop their own coping mechanisms to guard the data about them that is collected and stored. Second, unless our ability to analyze and sort information increases as rapidly as our ability to store it, our privacy will be protected by sheer information overload – that is, the data is out there, but no one can find it.

In a related point of interest, a study conducted this summer suggested that all this data is impairing our own ability to remember. A neuroscientist found that fully one third of youngsters in his study were unable to remember their own phone number without pulling out their cell phones. Of course, nothing ever changes – back when I was in grade school, we dealt with the same issue, debating the question of whether we should use calculators or memorize our multiplication tables. And the answer is probably still the same: you’re better off doing both.