iForget: How the iPhone Killed Memory
The iPhone is a gorgeous, near-perfect device that reads minds and moves planets. It's also destroying the traditional concept of memory.
Start with the basics: voice calls. Of all the phone numbers I use regularly, I only know five by heart--my childhood home, my wife's cellphone, my wife's office number, and the cellphone numbers of two colleagues. Excluded from that list is my entire biological family, my best friends, even my home phone. Even so, I can easily rattle off the home phone numbers of my top ten friends from high school; it's been twelve years since I last dropped a dime but the finger patterns are ingrained through years of repetition.
Move on to the rest of life. How do you get to the airport? Can't remember; map it on my iPhone. What time does your flight leave? I have no idea, but my iPhone does. Who won last night? I saw the score somewhere; better ask the iPhone guru. How many calories in a Caesar salad? Dr. iPhone I presume.
Then there are the ADD iPhone habits. Two minutes at the bus stop and I'm reading up on the latest Manny Ramirez contract shenanigans. During commercial breaks I hop onto Facebook and check the updates about my friends' kids' bowel movements. Waiting in line at the bank I hop onto the App Store and download a brain teaser application I'll delete a week later. Nothing I can remember; nothing WORTH remembering; and the attention span of a horny teenager.
I rarely plan anymore because I don't need to; iPhone has the answer. Not that I miss planning, or memorizing things, or waiting to find a computer or newspaper to get the sports score. Try the thing--it knows what you want to do. One touch to delete an email. Pinch and push the screen to check movie times. Feels as natural as blowing your nose.
Here the traditionalist in me rises to defend the classical structures formed by planning ahead, an organizational mindset that makes me think strategically and trains me to anticipate. As for memorization--few like the act of doing it, but there's nothing quite like knowing something in your head, having answers even out of cellphone coverage. Not to mention being able to survive a 12-hour Internet-free plane ride without freaking out.
But I won't defend the buggywhip for long. Without the iPhone I immediately become less current, and more frequently bored, and relatively incommunicado, a social outcast, the equivalent of running with a parachute. The iPhone and other smartphones are mind-blowing devices, and they're reshaping how we remember, how we interact, how we filter information, how we live.
Look around in any public place. We're all doing it, typing away or chatting or reading or watching videos on our phones. This is a societal movement. Traditional concepts of memory and thought are changing drastically, irrevocably. There will be misunderstandings, hurt feelings, fear, long expert debates over how we absorb information, with a cast of revolutionaries and reactionaries and missionaries and scaremongers.
This shifting landscape isn't good or bad--it is. Try to remember to make a note of it on your iPhone.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Pasted from the internet:
A reporter interviewed Albert Einstein. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked if he could have Einstein's phone number so he could call if he had further questions.
“Certainly” replied Einstein. He picked up the phone directory and looked up his phone number, then wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to the reporter.
Dumbfounded, the reporter said, "You are considered to be the smartest man in the world and you can't remember your own phone number?”
Einstein replied, “Why should I memorize something when I know where to find it?”
iPhone 101
The iPhone is really a little computer running OSX.
More than just a smartphone.
i think its ok, then we can remember other, more important things that wont fit on the iPhone or wont be secure on it.
And we dont need to constantly remind our selves of things and spend half the day making sure you did something
by the way, not all humans are philosophers. i don't think we need to worry about a generation of lost geniuses. there was only one socrates and he still would have been socrates even if he had an iphone. he just would have posted his aphorisms on twitter.
the iphone is awesome. like having a personal secretary with infinite knowledge. rather than looking at it as a replacement for memory, i see it as a supplement. i also see it as a way of freeing me up from the tyranny of ultimately unimportant details.
I completely agree. Having an iPhone is like having your own personal secretary. It stores all your contacts and text messages, it can wake you up for class and tell you turn by turn directions to get to the nearest In-N-Out. There are over 15,000 applications to entertain and make the user's life simpler. Can a secretary even do that?
As great as all this technology is the phrase 'no one saw this coming' as applied to the current economic meltdown, is getting more commonplace. It's like checking the current weather in your immediate area instead of looking out the window or stepping outside to experience it first hand. Back to the economy. After this recession/depression is over, it would be interesting to compare our ability to deal with it effectively given all our technology and access to information with the Great Depression. The Dow Jones continues to drop every day whether you view it on your iPhone or the old ticker tape machines. Is there a lower divorce rate among couples who are in constant communication with their cell phones and text messaging etc. compared to 50 years ago? Did I say 'communication'? I meant 'contact'. I wonder how much communication is taking place nowadays.
I love my iphone and I think it's gorgeous, but credit must be given where credit is due. 80% if the features of the iphone you credited it with are actually due to the internet - google maps, recipes , live scores etc. All these same things can be accessed with a laptop that has 3G wireless capability.
All the iphone does is place the internet in the palm of your hand, but packaged in such a way that is indeed revolutionary.
I still remember relying on phone cards 10 years ago to stay in touch with my family while I was in the army. Life today is so drastically different now than even 10 years ago. I'm loving it though. It's exciting to be alive to witness this technology revolution.
geomaniac says:
"iphones and smart phones are just like anything else in life. They can be used for good or for evil."
but we're not talking about good and evil. we're talking about the effects on society of a major change in the "information ocean" in which we live. the first of these revolutions was the printed book, centuries ago. the habits of thought spawned by that development fostered the development of science and technology. then came things like the telephone, television, and now the mobile internet-connected device. what we don't know is, what habits of thought will be spawned by *this* development?
I'm interested in the question of whether a society is capable of reproducing itself. the question posed by the author comes down to: will a generation raised exclusively on texting and tweeting develop the skills needed to build those devices? look at bin Laden and al Qaeda: while they are happy to utilize modern communications technologies, the sad fact is that muslim societies have created none of it. So bin Laden is using a technology that his favored society could never have developed.
Are today's tweeters in the same position? Are they using a technology that is making them so stupid that they will be unable to take up the job of maintaining the networks they are using today?
See Matt Stewart's Profile
One way to look at it is this: we're drowning in information, so much so that we HAVE to ignore most of them or else we'll never get through the day. iPhone gives us the facts when we want them, so we can focus on strategic decisions.
That's the positive spin, of course - the negative side is that we're constantly distracted and it requires huge will power to focus and think deeply. Which is not good for the future of society.
The smarter our tech gets, the stupider we get. We are being reduced to the functioning sex organs of "our" technology. When our gizmos become self-replicating, self-proliferating, and capable of evolving on their own without our help or input, we will become useless and go extinct. If we don't kill ourselves with global warming first, then this will be our inevitable end, not with a bang, but a whimper.
Hey, I like the sex slave part.
There's a sci-fi movie in there somewhere, or at least a really good commercial.
btw, I LOVE my iphone!
The iphone is just the latest iteration.
The explosion of information has caused us to develop new strategies. Beyond need-to-know stuff, we jettison that which is easily recalled by our droids lest we explode with data. At the same time we've developed a huge appetite for information and novelty, much of which are like empty calories. The latest rage is to become twits.
The effect is not just on memory, time and space itself are becoming abstracted.
iphones and smart phones are just like anything else in life. They can be used for good or for evil. The real trick is finding the right balance between using them "appropriately" and becoming hopelessly addicted to them. See "Crackberry".
The tool itself has no morality about how it's used. It is up to the user to decide what is right for them.
"Look around in any public place. We're all doing it, typing away or chatting or reading or watching videos on our phones. This is a societal movement."
I've noticed this for years, and occasionally it makes me wish I possessed superior pickpocket skills. All the attention you devote to iPhone/cell phone/Blackberry activities exists in exact proportion to how much attention you're not paying to your immediate environment.
I'm a semi-Luddite and proud of it. Don't use TV (exept as a monitor for occasional dvd's). Gave up the cell phone. Use the Internet on a desktop PC, which is as plugged in as I want to be. No monthly cable or cell bills, more quiet and freedom, more time to read books and write and think.
I see people taking a walk on a beautiful day, sometimes with their small children, phone plastered to their ears. I used to do it too. Is it really that important to be in 24/7 contact? Guess I'm just out of touch with "modern society." Oh well.
I am similar to you, but perhaps for a slightly different reason. I do desire to be a pawn to anyone. I live my life, I do not want to live others lives. They have theirs, I have mine.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
