Technology And Memory

With each step of progress made by technology, someone is eager to characterize it as dangerous.  Regardless of the benefits that come with evolving technology, slanderous accusations persist.  One accusation that frightens some holds that technology erodes the ability to retain information.  A more developed version of this claim might posit that devices like computers and smartphones inevitably make people rely on them to the exclusion of maintaining an active memory, but this stance is just as flawed as other anti-technology positions.

As is the case with any technological feat, there is no uniform reaction to the increasingly computerized nature of information storage.  Some people might feel at liberty to not commit important information to memory, but technology has neither eliminated the need for remembering things--something it could never do--nor led to a mass abandonment of attempts to memorize.  Others might see technology as a way to store information for the purpose of memorization, as technology can certainly be used in the process of becoming intimately familiar with that information.

Regarding the fact that technology could never erase the need for memorizing things, the critics of technology seem oblivious to the ever-present need for using one's memory.  To even recall which information is stored electronically, one must use one's memory to some extent, making a partial use of memory inescapable.  Without a memory that at least functioned in an internally consistent manner, a person could not even use technology without being confused from one moment to the next!

Because many people who are hostile towards or suspicious of technological progress often express a reference for more traditional information storage methods like books, it is very illuminating to point out the double standards they employ.  The fallacious critics of technology could have made the same incorrect claim that modern devices impair memory about the process of writing when paper became more commonplace.  That they are not against using books and hand-written papers to store information instead of electronic devices testifies to their arbitrariness and hypocrisy.

Instead of blaming technologies that improve the safety and convenience of modern life for personal issues, the public needs to accept that computers, smartphones, and other devices do not sap away the ability to memorize.  A person could enjoy the convenience they offer without forfeiting their capacity to remember miscellaneous information, and they are even capable of being used as useful supplements to human memory.  Emotional dislike of technology, not logical or scientific reasons, are behind this criticism of recent technological trends.