The widespread use of smartphones and personal computers is rapidly weakening our species’ “natural” memory, various researchers claim, and they present this as something “bad.” Is it? In the process of ever-closer fusion between electromechanical and human, the hassle of memory is transferred to the machines—isn’t that a major success? And then, if some people have a problem with this development, won’t chemical or electronic “memory boosters” be found? What are the innovative entrepreneurs going to do—become shoemakers?
However, smartphones can also be used in favor of “physical” memory. In a research project at Ohio State University, volunteers hung a smartphone on their chest, and it took random photos for a month. Later, the volunteers / test subjects were asked to “recognize” the photos that had been taken.
The aim of the experiment was not to measure the sharpness and accuracy of their memory. When they responded, they were under continuous brain fMRI scanning. The researchers were looking for where (in the brain) the memories of human experiences of space and time are “stored”; the “natural” memories, that is.
And they found it (they claim), along with the “layout” of the successive memorizations. Somewhere in the “hippocampus.”
Obviously the research was conducted for good purposes. To help (in the future) people with Alzheimer’s or with advanced amnesia. In the latter case, avid users of electronic storage/memory should also be included, shouldn’t they?
We don’t want to give anyone ideas, but a USB port near the hippocampus might become a must in the near future.