Modern Technology and Memory Loss

The old saying of 'If you don't use it, you lose it" applies here.

I've experience the same.

So true. All kinds of formulas I "learned" in school, escaped during that time. Now that I have used them repetitivley in real life, I don't need to look them up any more, especially simple structural analysis.

Similarly, when I was a CNC programmer earlier in my caeer, I was so familiar with it, that it feels like its a part of me.

I found when I left that industry,.... retention only lasts about 4-6 months before the year is out, without review, its gone.

Parallel backup via Rolodex^TM.

Every now and then I try and keep track of the price of every item we buy while shopping then add the tax on as well and see if I can guess what we are going to pay and see if I am right when we check out. All done in my head of course then I tell my wife and we see if I am close or not.

I usually get within a dollar and on occasion have hit it right on much to the general negative responses from my wife about how I can keep track of all that in my head yet I cant remember to take my shoes off when I come in the house or some other nonsense that has to do with applied math and memory skills.

I watch the check out as they ring it up, they tend to run things over twice.

Hopefully, we can use our brains for more creative things than remembering telephone numbers and multiplication tables.

But how is it that I can still remember my home telephone number from when I was 5 years old, but none since.

It meant more to you then, than afterwards, for some reason we won't bother to go into here. I still know my military ID number very well after 45yrs. Believe me, the size of my sergeant when I was a rookie, helped in me remembering that!

I don't think it's that so much as our younger/newer minds were more adept at assimilating experiences into long-term memory. For me, a striking example is song lyrics. I remember many, many song lyrics word-for-word from when I was 10 - 12, but from my 20s and 30s, not as much.

Today, If I want to learn a song by heart, I have to focus on memorizing and it's hard work!

That may have more to do with memory associations with your youth's emotional state.

People tend to like music that is prevalent with their youth because of the rapid emotional brain growth during that period. People become nostalgic and music couples very strongly with emotion. It much more readily hard-wires into the brain.

Music is one of the strongest links to our brain's emotions and a developing brain from 10 to 20 years old is particularly linked to music of that day. It is something that doesn't fade with age, no matter how your tastes mature as you get older.

While it is true your cognitive abilities slow with age, the formative years of youth dovetail very tightly with music, making it easier to remember.

Agreed! I had a heavy crush on this girl across the way (48 yrs ago), and she moved away unexpectedly while "Sounds of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel was playing on the radio. I can relive those moments by playing that song now, quite vividly.

Toni, if you're reading this, and you've kept your figure, please call. We have unfinished business!!

As I remember in my youth, It always confused me, and this may be a bad example,.... but when myself and my dad would be working on a piece of equipment, whether it was general maintenance or fixing. If we had to do it again, I had to remind my dad about how we did it the last time, I felt that he was just humoring me, because I could not believe he could forgot something so simple...... as a procedure or what to watch out for.

Of course I would point it out to him, and his response was its because my mind was more empty than his, and that I had room to remember.

But now I know what he meant and was going through....

The difference now is that we don't have to remember those numbers and the kid behind the cash register isn't forced by you, me or his boss to count back change.

"Look mister, the register tells me how much change to give you, why do you need me to count it out for you?"

In a past job, I used to tell my vendors, "I remember your phone number now. That's NOT a good thing for you".

Now, I just tell my phone who to call or where I want to go and it does it for me. If I'm driving and I get a text, it reads it to me and asks me what I want it to text back to the sender.

We are products of our environment.

When we go to sleep at night, we no longer have to worry about that tiger eating us in the dark.

But here's what happened when a fairly small black bear climbed onto my second-story deck in Ketchikan last Saturday night. I had rigged up the deck with sort of a low zip-line to which I could attach a cat leash. Anyway, around 1 AM there was a commotion on deck outside the kitchen door. When I looked out the window in the upper half of the door, this bear was more scared of me than I of it. It ran across the deck, almost immediately tripping over the rope. As for the bear, all I could see was a dark shadow; but the rope was thrashing around like double-dutch, with the poor bear bouncing this way and that. It broke free, scampered along another 90-degree section of deck, clattering among a lawn chair and table. I think it finally bailed out over the railing, but I'm not sure of its final route. The sudden quiet was quite a relief.

Yes, a product of your environment.

the next time you're in a fast food place and the cashier says, $1.15 hand them a 5 and a quarter...they'll have to call the manager in on that one

Nope. They'll just punch in $5.25 and let the computer do the heavy math.

I had done something similar at a TJ MAX but I had rounded it up so I'd get $20.00 back..... (I was there with my girl friend)

The cashier said, basically, we can't get there from here.

Ron, no harm in remembering the most precious telephone numbers in your brain and not in the phone.

Add a little security to your family members and friends by just storing their number in your brain.

Its just dialing it instead looking it up in the contacts. Its you that uses the machine so you still make all the difference.

"If overnight, all phones and electronic devices went dead, how would we be able to cope."

I'd have to use email or my amateur radio.

Amateur radio without electronics? Spark gap and coherer?

Always tubes, too. ;-)

AH

Tnx fer reminding me!

I have 3 dual band hand-helds, and 1 charger. So I circulate the radios on and off the charger to keep all three charged. It was time to do a swap.

73 de Bill NW7L

I have been a pretty good "number calculations in my head" person but better at accurate approximations most of my life. Several years ago, due to a serious health event, the flow of blood to my brain stopped for 6 minutes. My short term memory has been effected some but I do the best I can with it. I can remember faces but can't remember names as good as before. Wife gets mad when she has to repeat things or I don't remember things so I use lists when I go shopping. The thing interesting to me is that my long term memory seems to have become more acute. I can tell you the name of every teacher I have had starting with kindergarten all the way up to my last evening course last year.

When we go to dinner and the stingy mother-in-law is paying she tries to short tip the server for any reason she can. She spends about 5 minutes adding things several times and always thinks she sees errors on the bill. As soon as I know the total of the bill it only takes me about a second to calculate the tip to the penny while the wife and her mother take about another 5 minutes to figure what it should be and what they don't have to tip. I love to tick them off with the "instant" math.

As several have mentioned also, I can tell you the phone numbers of people I knew when I was a teen-ager but have to think about what mine is now.

Life has changed but to the better!

Good Luck, Old Salt

I never attempt to commit anything to memory that I can write down someplace....it's a real energy saver....and more accurate...I reserve memory space for the important things....like (insert joke here)...

(remembering where you put all those pieces of paper)?

I find that what I remember changes with need or use. I can think of a lot of examples: here is one, years ago when I was programming a plasma burn table to burn out sheet metal parts, I converted so many fractions from drawings every day that I ended up memorizing all decimal equivalents in 1/32" increments from 0 to 1". I would have to look a lot of them up now.

As far as coping without electronics, I think it would be very entertaining to observe. I do not think I would miss them as much as others [I have a lot of books].

I found this line in text on wiki when reading about memory in the article below.

Possibly because of these extraordinary abilities, certain individuals have difficulties in social interactions with others who have normal memories (only 2 of 55 in the United States have successful marriages), and may additionally suffer from depression stemming from the inability to forget unpleasant memories and experiences from the past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory

Well that explains a lot, maybe I have a better memory than I thought...lol. I remember I used to love my ex-wife but I cannot remember why!!!

A big problem arises when I leave my cell phone at home and I'm out somewhere and have to call someone. I don't have the number stored n my head.

On a slightly different note.... I keep losing where I set my phone down and can't find it.

Since I put an app on my iphone and ipad, I use one to find the other..... god help me if I begin to lose/misplace both.

I have a "find my phone" app on my laptop.

My wife and kid can find my phone for me too.

works better then a name tag pinned to your shirt, doesn't it?

on a serious note,..... I love the serenity when I can't find my phone.

Me too, but, My phone is always on and on me or in the charging cradle at night, still on.

I'm #1 on the alarm company's call list.

I'm only in the office 6 hours a day so I use it for company e-mails too.

I've carried a cell phone since 1992. Still have my original number.

I have my phone with me all the time. Even if you call my desk at work at any time, the call will automatically forward to my cell phone. I check my work email via my cell phone all the time. It's also the only alarm clock I use. So it would be strange to be without it, but I am not sure I would miss it that much.

I usually have my cell phone with me at all times, but once in a while, I may forget to take it, like when it may be on charge.

I read an interesting article not long ago. The author's point that our dependence on our smart phones to "remember" things for us (eg, addresses, phone numbers, everything we google) is actually not a change of behavior at all. His point was that we are a social animal and we have always lived in groups where someone was good at remembering where things were, someone was good at remembering how to do this kind of thing, someone was good at remembering another, and we depended on them to remember these things for us. Instead of farming out our remembering tasks to others, we use a tool.

I haven't remembered a phone number since I got married. My wife remembers those. I remember names for both of us. When I worked in the semiconductor industry, I could tell you the atomic number and masses of Al, Si, P, As, Sn, Cu, B, C, O, Au, Ar, Ti, W, and more, plus the keV for the associated K, L, M α & β X-ray photons, and their densities in g/cc. Haven't needed any of that info in the last 16 years, and I can't tell you much of any of it now. But I can tell you what a lot of government acronyms mean, and I couldn't do that 10 years ago. My point is, our brains are squishy and will fit into whatever spot we ask them to fit. So try to make it a spot worth squishing it into.

I think the author is a fool.

We no longer live in social groups at all.

When's the last time you even saw your neighbor? Never mind speaking to them, or even knowing their name.

Kids text from one room to another any more.

My social group is mainly the people I work with, some family, and some of the members of the two musical groups I am currently a member of. And, to some degree, you and the others here.

Whether the author is a fool is an entirely different discussion.

When's the last time you even saw your neighbor? Never mind speaking to them, or even knowing their name.
The day my new neighbors moved in approx. 3 months ago, I knew their names (Bill and Arlene) and had their phone number in case there were issues at their house. They are doing some renovations and had lots of contractors there. I make it a point to know my neighbors unless they want nothing to do with me, which there are a few that prefer to not be conversant. We look after each others houses and vehicles because the area we live in borders an area that is populated by prostitutes and methamphetamine dealers and users.

Kids text from one room to another any more.

Very true, Human interaction is going away. I try to get face to face interaction whenever I can with my clients!

Dear Mr. ronseto,

You are absolutely correct. During my school days, we used to memorise Multiplication Tables 1 to 20 in the ascending order and descending order. Similarly many formulae will be memorised for example the Film Co-Efficient in heat transfer equation, it is 4th Root of ( (k^3) x (Rho ^2) x g xLamda)/ (Delta Meu/T) I do not get the symbols hence I described in words.

When I entered in Engineering College, the Slide Rule was used (not Calculators in those days) and for 10 x 2 I had to use the Slide Rule. Certainly Memory Loss.

A tail piece: I have studied recently a Doctor's article that we should not load our brain with much of memories.

DHAYANANDHAN.S

My wife always teases me that she can do mental addition and much faster than I can, and I have my degree in Mathematics. But, like you, I memorized multiplication tables, and I can still do mental multiplication pretty well.

One of my favorite stories related to this topic was told by Richard Feynman. When we was working on the Manhattan Project, Feynman was amazed at how accurate Hans Bethe could be at multiplying numbers with multiple digits. After a lot of frustration on Feynman's part trying to figure out how Bethe could do this, Bethe told him it was simple. Just memorize the Logarithm Tables.

Everything I memorized 70+ years ago is still in my memory. The times tables, the alphabet and spelling of words is still with me. I think it is a necessity for all. I usually don't have to resort to a spell check when I am writing. I can do quick calculations at the check-out register without need of a calculator. That is because I had to memorize correct spelling at an early age. People today can't spell because they never learned how to in school. I don't think memorization takes up space in the brain that could be used for other brain functions. In fact, it has been estimated that we use only about 2% of our brain's capability. (I'm guessing at the 2%, but it was a pretty small number.)

It is my opinion that the more we rely on devices to do the memory and calculating, we will evolve into a species that will be totally dependent on those devices. That can take many generations to happen; take away those devices and you will end up with a new "dark age", where we will have to reinvent everything again, including how to read/write and do math. But; I'm certain there will be a few who didn't subscribe to the labor saving mental devices that will end up inheriting the earth.

"it has been estimated that we use only about 2% of our brain's capability"

That was dispelled on my first day of anatomy class. The instructor said we use 100% of our brains every day.

Then again, driving in traffic seems to say otherwise.

Once upon a time it was thought that the brain was a cooling device, like a radiator. On a hot day, 100% usage would be necessary.

But it is a cooling device,

Absolutely correct, and a GA

Albert Einstein said that the reason he did not keep his telephone number in his memory is because he stated that if he needed to know it, he would look it up in the phone book.

Why commit useless things to memory when it can be found somewhere else.

Why clog up your brain with rarely used information?

If the cellular network went down or if the internet went down, I would jump up and giggle with glee.

I know I would be able to do my own work and it would be great fun watching the "Entitled Generation" melt down because their world would be shattered without their social media.

Yes, the electronics of today are a double edged sword and should be treated as such. The people that are able to continue their life even with a severe "electronic" disruption are the ones that will survive a catastrophic "electronic" collapse.