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I feel like you’re really grasping at wanting this to be true, but I gotta tell you I lived through all of these things being common and none of what you’re asserting matches my reality.
The number of things that I have to actually remember hasn’t really changed in the last 40 years.
Do you still have a bunch of friends phone numbers from the last few years memorized? Do you have your local delivery place’s number memorized?
When you go on a road trip you still look at a map, route directions yourself, and develop a loose memory of it?
You can say off the top of your head which friends birthdays are on which days for the next 3 months?
It’s not an opinion that modern technology makes us not have to memorize information that’s just objective fact the debate is about whether relying on technology causes brain damage and that’s where research is still being done.
In the past 20 years really the only “new” thing we have to memorize are passwords which we still had before but they are at least more complicated now but even then many people repeat the same few passwords or use a password manager so they aren’t remembering 10 unique passwords
Using technology to remember things for us is literally one of the fundamental purposes of technology going back to the invention of the written word, manufacturable paper, printing press, computers, and now phones so I genuinely don’t see how you can say that since 1985 you don’t think people rely on technology for memory any more
Begging the question on all of these.
I never knew the number for my local pizza place, because I had a Rolodex and a phone book. If I needed to make a call I opened one of those two things. My modern phone contact book is just a better version of the same thing.
I use a gps to navigate routinely, because it gives me real time traffic alerts; after driving to any place a couple of times I can generally get there on my own, regardless of if I used GPS or a paper map to get there the first time.
I have never been able to remember birthdays. That’s why I have always, since I was a kid, had a calendar.
It is, in fact, definitely an opinion that we no longer need to remember anything because “tech”. Facts tend to be far less flexible.
If you didn’t have a bunch of those common phone numbers memorized then that is definitely a you thing. My whole friend group all knew each others phone numbers and it was actually important that you could memorize those phone numbers in case you had to call from someone elses house or a pay phone.
You even acknowledge that you use a gps for routine travel and think that is the same as developing a mental map?
Again literally the act of looking at a calendar to see future dates is more mentally demanding then relying on getting a reminder sent to you
Did you even read what I wrote? Do you have your entire oral history memorized? No because we have the ability to write it down that’s technology. Do you use password manager to autofill passwords? Do you get text message/app/email reminders of appointments? Do you neglect to memorize things because you can google them? You already said that you use gps for routine travel around town.
All of that involves using memory less, we don’t have enough tech to fully replace memory and probably never will. If you don’t believe me go 24 hours without using technology from the past 40 years for anything not explicitly required for work so no gps, no phone reminders, no google, no password managers then try and do normal things like go run a bunch of errands, cook a meal, pay bills, go shopping in person instead of online