How the iPhone and Facebook will remake recorded memories and human history

Jul 05, 2011 Published under Introspection

With modern technology as it is, the unprecedented depth and constant recording of personal histories is going to transform the social fabric of humanity and even the way our brains and memories work.

Generations raised prior to the internet, social networks, the iPhone and its ilk did not remember much or most of their early lives, and only selectively their daily and lifetime experiences. Now everything is being recorded. So new generations, and most of us plugged in to the new world, will ‘remember’ incidents so much more readily.

Will those new ‘memories’ displace other brain functions, or enhance them? Will facilitated memories make our general ability to recollect greater or lower? Will concepts like nostalgia and melancholia be redefined, reframed or even replaced?

Will modern history be taught and seen differently? Will the very concept of ‘history’ be redefined?

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Daniel Lubetzky