The March 12 edition of Time magazine has an article on ten ideas that are changing our lives. One idea has to do with the amount of information we take in on any given day. According to the article, “Each day, the average American spends about 12 hours consuming information, taking in more than 100,000 words that total 34 gigabytes of data.” Whew! One point of the article is that we can only cram so much information into our heads before it begins to leak out, and more and more we are relying on the Internet to “store” our memory. All we have to remember is where we put the information or where we can find it when we need to retrieve it again. Because of this, the article continues, we aren’t even trying to remember because we don’t have to. Our “memory” is stored, not in our heads, but somewhere in cyberspace.
I am so glad to hear that because my memory is like a sieve and has been for a long time. I don’t think I can possibly remember One. More. Thing. At least not any new thing. My problem is more complicated, though. I can’t remember old things either. Is there a place online that I can store memories before they become too old, like in five minutes, so I can retrieve them when I need to? Just think how much easier life would become:
Hubby: “Honey, where did you put that check I asked you to deposit?”
Me: “Darned if I know. Why don’t you check the Internet?”
Coming East 
I think I’m still running on a floppy disk!
Very funny comment, Patti!
Just know you are not alone and we all rely heavily on the cyberspace. But that’s no consolation to help you find where your check is, is it?
HA! My daughter let’s me know that she has memory lapses, too, so old Mom won’t feel so….well, old.
Oh, what a great idea – outsourcing our memory. I would love to have a sort of bank in cyberspace that would remind me not to forget my list! Great post Susan.
Thanks, Dor. I love the idea of a “bank” of memories, as long as we can’t be overdrawn!
If you need more memory…dropbox.com is where you can find my brain. I haven’t used a flashdrive since I discovered it…two years ago…Now if something happens to them, I’m in big trouble.
My son has told me about drop box, Georgette. I’m going to have him show me how it works when we visit at Easter. I use iCloud, but I don’t understand it very well.
I’ve found myself unlikely to remember things like appointments, meetings, lessons, etc. unless I put them in what I call my “portable brain” (my phone). I don’t know if it’s because I know I have an alternative place to note it or if it’s just because I’ve gotten bad at remembering what I used to be good at remembering. I’d love to blame it on the former, but I still keep a wall calendar and write things on it, as well…
I write things down, too, SC. But then I forget to check my calendar. I’m hopeless.
I agree. It’s easier to forget thoughts and memories if you think they’re safely stored somewhere for us to reach in relative ease. Great post. 🙂
If the computer crashes, though, EC, we’d be in trouble!
I am waiting for the day made by glass to come. It’d be so nice if we could all depend on a piece of glass to learn, remember, and retrieve things.
I wonder if that day will come while I still can experience it, Amy.
I think the simple explanation is that by a certain age our hard drives are full. We have to kick out some information in order to store other information!
I wish we could choose what gets kicked out, Margie, but it seems I retain the useless stuff and forget what’s important.
Even worse is deja vu with memory loss.. That’s the feeling that you’ve forgotten this before.
That comment was funnier than my whole post, Al!
When you find that storage bank into which I can put my memories, let me know. Of course, then I’ll have to bookmark the site, then I’ll have to remember that it is listed under Bookmarks and what I called it. I can give you the most unimportant details of “old stuff” just don’t ask me to remember why I walked from the kitchen to the living room, or (to use your example) why I drove to the bank as I’m sitting in the drive through line!!
You are so right, Carol. The Internet wouldn’t help me either.
Yes. Sometimes I think about doing something so much, I begin to think I actually did it. I swear I called and told you I was running late. YOU forgot.
HA! Adela, my father used to tell me that he remembered things whether they happened or not. You are in good company because Mark Twain said it, too.