Same. I can tell you my home phone number from 1993. Cannot tell you my own phone number right now without looking at a note in my Craft docs where I saved it.
The compensating structure for that one is just... the phone not dying. Which is not a great system.
This is a great piece, and I agree with what you said about compensating and ultimately, forgetting what you lost. I use the computer everyday, and I lost my interest in other things that don't require a computer. With a computer, I found my sense of control and I haven't looked back ever since.
The interest one is darker than the skill one. Forgetting phone numbers is inconvenient. Losing curiosity about things that aren't screen-shaped is a different kind of cost.
But "sense of control" is real. That's the tradeoff working exactly as designed.
This was a great article! With the introduction of iPhones, I can barely remember my own phone number let alone the rest of my family and friends.
Same. I can tell you my home phone number from 1993. Cannot tell you my own phone number right now without looking at a note in my Craft docs where I saved it.
The compensating structure for that one is just... the phone not dying. Which is not a great system.
Calculators! I can't do math without them. Well, I could never do math no matter what. Me and numbers have never got along. But still
Calculators killed manual calculation. Thank God- long division?! What the what?!
Long division was never alive. Calculators just made it official.
(Nobody mourns long division. Not one person. It died and the funeral had zero attendees.)
Ha!
This is a great piece, and I agree with what you said about compensating and ultimately, forgetting what you lost. I use the computer everyday, and I lost my interest in other things that don't require a computer. With a computer, I found my sense of control and I haven't looked back ever since.
The interest one is darker than the skill one. Forgetting phone numbers is inconvenient. Losing curiosity about things that aren't screen-shaped is a different kind of cost.
But "sense of control" is real. That's the tradeoff working exactly as designed.