Is memory outmoded?
Memory is déclassé, démodé for today’s generation. And why not? Everything you might ever need to know is available at the tap of your screen.
The capital of Azerbaijan? Tap! Baku.
What does the c in e=mc2 stand for? Tap! Celerity or Light.
Lyrics of Heal the World? Tap! There’s a place in your heart…
What is the name of the song that begins with There’s a place in your heart…? Tap! Heal the World by Michael Jackson.
It gets better. What’s the name of this song we’re hearing on the radio? Shazam it.
What is this insect on my wall? Take a picture on Google lens.
How to knot a tie? YouTube it.
In earlier, analog times, one would scratch one’s head, think of someone who could and would provide the right answer, sing the correct snatch of song with the apt lyrics or help with the necessary skill. And there were always hard copies stacked on shelves at home or in a library. Encyclopedias, reference books, fact books, quiz books, maps, magazines. But the demand on one’s memory and resourcefulness was greater. Even if one’s walls were lined with shelves full of books, it was essential to reach up to the correct shelf and grab the correct book.
Our home has a collection of over 150 copies of National Geographic spread over a decade and a half. Every issue burgeons over with top-notch pictures on nature, people, cities, regions, cultures, and of course maps that are cartographic masterpieces. But if you ask me for, say, monarch butterflies or desert snakes, tulip horticulture, cheeses or the bridges of Madison County, I’d go through a semi-informed trial-and-error process, frantically willing my neural synapses to swoop down on the right issue. Eventually, not only would I find what I was looking for, I would also leaf through some wrong issues, with equally fascinating articles, and spend a happy couple of hours brushing up on Sumerian scripts, the Serengeti, or the waterways of Vietnam…
Cut to today. No matter what is needed, it can be found in a snap. That has an array of advantages: work can be done more quickly and efficiently, space is saved, and we don’t need to store numbers and addresses in our brains, our smartphones do all the grunt work. And we get instant gratification in the form of a smart solution.
So what’s the big deal? Memory, like any other skill, needs to be used. Put to work. Pushed to work. The less we have to remember, the less we can. Some people need autofill even to key in an OTP.
Now put yourself in a human-to-human social situation on, say, a flight. Or a road trip. Or a group discussion. Or an interview. Or a party. You temporarily cannot use your smartphone. Even if you excuse yourself for a moment, how fast can your fingers type, discreetly, before Google or Wikipedia disgorges enough relevant information so you can triumphantly slide back into the conversation with confident details of that match, or the name or old film of that actor, or that candy ad?
Training yourself to read, view and remember stuff is both useful as well as desirable. You may not need everything from the internet. But what interests you should be yours in the true sense, right?
Taking part in quizzes, subject olympiads and mind sports sharpens your memory, trains your brain to retain information, and provides you with substance when you need to sound smart in social situations.
INDAC and IAC offer international platforms (and wonderful opportunities) to apply your memory for intellectual purposes.
Better quality humans are those whose memory serves them well. Are you one?
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