Outsourcing Our Memory...

This morning, as the computer was coming to life, my thoughts were to go back to Buenos Aires, late 1985. However, my usual first moves with my phone or my computer as it (they) comes to life, is to check news from different sources. Not only the death, gore and score related news but also those which could be considered “off the wall”. Today, one of these last caught my eyes and mind and, as a result, Buenos Aires was relegated once again… but not for long.

The fear that our constantly developing electronic gadgetries have been taking away from us some of our millennia developed abilities has been alluded to every so often.  “What do you mean?” You ask.  Remember when the early calculators came on board? (For those of you who went to school in the 60’s and 70’s) Many school teachers forbade their use in classes and/or exams at the time. Their argument? - “Use your brains and you will never forget to add and multiply… never mind divide!!”  Just think for a moment of many a check-out person at any store, when confronted with having to figure out the change if the register’s computer is down…

The techno-world continued onwards, pushing its ever widening sphere of influence. Soon after, computers for personal use came out… One of the first at my beck and call was a floppy dependent Radio Shack/Texas Inst. model, which I actually took with me to Chile and Argentina in ‘85.  In the early 70’s, when computers were babies and  punch card dependent, I was working at a radio station in Stamford, Ct. On the floor above us, there was a tech company which owned one of these beasties. It took the whole floor, which was specially air conditioned to an almost sub freezing level. The cell phone I use today has about 4 times the memory that monster had.  And all this in barely 30-40 years.

Soon after, came the emails. Originally AOL was the (only) king; Who can forget the “You’ve got mail” every time the comp. was turned on? Today, although still available, it is fairly forgotten since anyone can have a “domain” and his/her own name mails. Anyone who was then “someone” had an e-mail… -“What’s your email?”  “My what?”  -“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t have one?” Silly, huh? Think back and you will remember one such conversation at one time or another. Much to the dismay of the US Postal Services, today most everyone does have one (or several) and we ask ourselves how it was we could wait for 2-4 days for an envelope to be received when now, if the promised mail takes more than 5 minutes to arrive, we become impatient…

I still actually use a pen to write (flowing ink type… yeah, I have mentioned elsewhere I am somewhat of a dinosaur, right?) but my calligraphy (remember that word form grade school?) has suffered as a result of my computer use. Everything is done in some type of word processing; we don’t need to worry about spelling or typos, since it will correct these for us and it will also suggest what syntax (Huh?) to use in a particular sentence. Don’t have to think much, right? Just click-correct the red underlines, and accept the suggestions on the green underlines… I like driving the “virtual processor police” nuts… every so often my style of writing will bring on multicolored underlines, which is my delight to ignore (in most cases…). It is helpful as a tool, but not as “The Only Final Word”.

Then the highly developed internet search engines came, which topic brings me to the article read this morning: Are we actually allowing these virtual universes and attendant software to take the place of our brain in many areas? The article writer’s take is that, while admitting there are several advantages to these technologies, many of the tasks we did before, especially in our own memory, have been relegated (The word “outsourced” is used) to the computer. Why make the effort to remember something when, at the touch of a button, we can bring all the pertinent information and more to the little screen in front of us...? Now we add “cloud computing” which may eventually negate the current computers’ own hard memory. Shall we call this a “Virtual2 Memory?” or perhaps, “SubVirtual-Virtual Memory…? Computers, as we know them today will be a thing of the past, themselves falling prey to the very advancements they made possible.

The question remains: - "Should we allow parts of our own brain to go on a sabbatical?"  "One which could easily become a permanent one?" How often do we hear today, upon requesting information (even basic info!) from a service person: -“I’m sorry, we can’t answer/process/digest/figure out your question… much less answer it… our computers are down” I wonder –as do many others who have much more information than I will ever have- what would happen if the computing systems go down for a week… Does the word “Chaos” come to mind?

I don’t have an answer; I am much a part of the older generation who witnessed these developments and who very willingly uses the computer in all its iterations; but, I have to admit that the concept of a “virtual, all-encompassing” I-Brain, MSDOS-brain or Google-brain scares me. I am all for advancement and growth, but am also totally in favor of remaining dependent on my very incomplete and human attributes for my own continued development and survival. Hopefully the next two or three generations will not totally give up on these.

“I Robot”, Anyone...?        

Be well, Be Back!!