A customer walked into a shop and bought just three items. When he asked “How much?” the salesgirl started looking for the calculator. When she found it, she started operating the calculator. After a few minutes she said, “Rs. 255.” The customer paid the amount wondering what was happening to the new generation. Modern technology has made us lazy and forgetful. Some people cannot even add 35 and 15 without a calculator.
How many phone numbers, birthdays of loved ones, or postal addresses can you remember? There are people who cannot remember their own mobile phone numbers. Quite unknown to them, they are showing signs of a new phenomenon known as ‘Digital amnesia.’ The term was coined by the cyber-security group Kaspersky Lab. It is experimenting with a digital device to store and remember information you cannot recall easily.
High-tech tools
Most young people are armed with hand-held high-tech tools. In a fast-changing world, they are necessary for their daily activities. The high-tech tools do not transform the way we live but they are changing the way we think. In a recent study, more than half of the 6,000 European adults could remember the phone numbers of the houses in which they lived as children. However, they could not remember the telephone numbers of their new homes. Some of them confessed that they had outsourced their memories to such an extent that they could not even make a telephone call to their spouses in an emergency. They could not even remember their children’s telephone numbers.
In the good old days, we discovered facts by reading books and newspapers. Some of us had the habit of recording such information in a journal. We never forgot such information because of readily printed material and writing it by hand. According to psychologists, you can remember what you write. In contrast, today we gather information online and never care to put down anything in writing. You read the information and forget it quickly.
Digital amnesia seems to cut across sex and age barriers. Those who belong to the older generation can remember information for a long time. However, the younger generation is worried about losing data on their digital devices. Even so they are not making an attempt to remember information by using some other method.
According to modern psychologists, looking up information online, instead of trying to recall it, has made us shallow thinkers. The human brain can accommodate a large number of data because it has billions of neurons. That means it has no capacity limit. It is arguable whether you can enhance your memory by using smartphones and other digital devices. However, what you gather by using digital devices seems to be easily forgotten.
Most young people and some adults are getting addicted to digital devices. This is something you cannot stop. While technology is affecting our cognitive development, we tend to lose our capacity for thinking and solving puzzles. Newspapers publish puzzles and most adults enjoy solving them. Only a very few youngsters like to solve puzzles. To solve puzzles, you should have a good memory. If you cannot remember the information necessary to solve a puzzle, you cannot enjoy that pastime. Most puzzles cannot be solved by using digital devices. The facts and figures should be in your memory.
GPS System
Today, you can reach any distant place by using the GPS system. In the past, we had no such digital device but we were able to locate places correctly by using our ‘bush-craft skills’ or common sense. You cannot expect a modern driver to have such rare skills. If the GPS System goes haywire, due to some mechanical defect, you will be stranded. This will not happen to a driver using common sense skills. Today, travellers use electronic map readers to reach isolated locations. If something goes wrong, they will not know what to do.
According to modern psychologists, digital devices and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are not only making us stupid but also potentially miserable creatures. Most Americans believe that human jobs will be done by robots within 50 years. They also think driverless cars will be a reality soon. Mark Pesce, a futurist, is rather worried by the enormity of the changes taking place today. He said that the physical world is harder for a robot to manage than the purely intellectual world of the professions.
Prof. Susan Luckman, author of ‘Craft and the creative economy’ says, “The high-tech is driving the low-tech.” According to her, the Internet has empowered the people to a great extent, but we are threatened with the loss of certain natural skills. Bob Cooper, a survival expert, says we are becoming so dependent on technology that we are losing common sense skills.
Commonsense skills
This does not mean that we should get rid of all digital devices. While using them we should hone our commonsense skills whenever possible. One way is to memorise some important facts and figures for daily use. For instance, you should be able to remember the telephone numbers of your loved ones and friends. Also try to remember their dates of birth. You should be able to remember the number of your National Identity Card. If you visit a bank regularly, the number of your current account should be clearly etched in your memory.
When it comes to learning, most students do not know the meaning or spelling of certain common words. This can be overcome by using a dictionary regularly. Today, most people use online dictionaries because that is a very convenient method. However, what you see on the screen does not remain in your memory for a long time. Therefore, always refer to a printed dictionary and copy down the meaning in your notebook. When we were students, we had to carry a concise dictionary to the class. Today, I do not see anyone carrying dictionaries to school. In fact, some students do not have dictionaries at home. If you follow such simple methods, they will act as a buffer against amnesia or the loss of your ability to remember.
