However, short-term memory has a major limitation, it can only remember seven things at a time on average. So when we are confronted with an overload of information, this memory blocks. We are no longer able to distinguish signal from noise.
“The Twitterization of our culture has revolutionized our lives, but with an unintended consequence— our overloaded brains freeze when we have to make decisions . (…) But as information finds more ways to reach us, more often, more inconsistently than ever before, another consequence is becoming alarmingly clear: trying to drink from a firehose of information has harmful cognitive effects. And nowhere are those effects clearer, and more worrying, than in our ability to make smart, creative, successful decisions. ”
The direct consequence of all this information overload is that information is no longer stored in long-term memory new zealand phone number list And this memory forms the basis of our personality. It determines how we experience 'time' and it largely determines who we are. When long-term memory is no longer used, what will the individual of the future look like? Will we all turn into digital couch potatoes ?
I can still remember a time when I had to remember phone numbers. I can still recall some of these phone numbers without any problem. Now I don’t know a single phone number anymore. Numbers are entrusted to a name or a photo somewhere in the cloud. The web has become an external hard drive for my memory. The same goes for addresses. In the past, when I drove to a new address for the first time, I drove there from memory without any problem the next time.Afterwards, I often don’t even remember exactly where I’ve been. Let alone that I can find it again later on.
I don't think I mind. In these cases I find technology a good extension of my own capacities. I don't want to concern myself with these kinds of trivialities. But if it is the case that technology takes away my memory and thereby changes my being, my essence and also drastically shortens the way in which I experience my time here on earth, then I think there is something fundamentally wrong. I thought that thanks to technology I had more control over my own life, but in reality I am losing control.
What do you think about this?