The article talks about how as people use technology to store information such as phone numbers and the like more and more, they are getting worse and worse at remembering them.

This strikes me as a pretty obvious thing to happen, but apparently, given the response to the article I saw, it’s getting interpreted and twisted around to imply that by not memorizing phone numbers and birthdays, brains are atrophying because if we’re not using that part of our brain for remembering that minutia, we’re not using it at all.

Much of it seemed like a huge overreaction to not being able to remember a birth date (who cares, seriously?). I was reassured that the whole world isn’t crazy, though, in reading the comments threads where there is a variety of different people explaining that by not filling one’s head with that junk, we can instead spend our time thinking and remembering other more useful things. I’m confident that if I suddenly found myself in a situation where I didn’t have the same access to technology that I have now, I’d still be just as capable of memorizing and recalling things, they’d just be different things.

As for the notion of an outboard brain, I think it’s a neat idea. A quote from the Wired article:

And frankly, I kind of like it. I feel much smarter when I’m using the Internet as a mental plug-in during my daily chitchat. Say you mention the movie Once: I’ve never seen it, but in 10 seconds I’ll have reviewed a summary of the plot, the actors, and its cultural impact. Machine memory even changes the way I communicate, because I continually stud my IMs with links, essentially impregnating my very words with extra intelligence.

Having read that, I went looking for the likely response from some other blogs I read occasionally, and as expected found one or two. From there, I saw linked Thomas Friedman’s Generation Q column.

Given how late seem to be on these, (3, 4 days? My, how quick things have become), I don’t think I’ve got a lot to add to the posts and comments from above and from here, which I saw in the same post I saw Generation Q.

I would like to add that I am quite tired of the myriad labels for this generation I feel like I keep hearing. It seems tired and old to characterize this cohort as generation whatever, but still people do it. Generation this, generation that, blah blah blah.

I guess I am a one such recent graduate who is in the midst of my would-be odyssey years. I guess the column does fit with my own experience. I too do not really know what to make of these pronouncements though.

I’m less sure of what to make of the Generation Q article. Mr. Friedman calls for some sort of more… active demonstration of the pursuit of what’s important.

I don’t really get it. What kind of action does he expect students to take, and more importantly, what kind of response is he hoping to get? I’ve been quite apathetic myself, I can’t deny that. One excuse I can think of is that I’ve sort of given up. Having never really been witness to any sort of profound demonstration and action as a result, I just don’t bother. Instead I’m in China and expecting them to steal the thunder on the world stage sometime soon, and rather than be stuck in an ungraceful transition to number 2 in the US, I’ll be here.