“Better late than never” is feeling more like a
daily mantra for me this term than something uttered as I run doggedly into a
coffee shop to meet a friend 15 minutes late, but here I am with my first
#tiebc post… 2 book club meetings (I missed the 3rd) and 5 chapters
in to Clive Thompson’s book, Smarter Than You Think. Better. Late. Than. Never.
Indeed.
Our #tiegrad book club meets every couple of weeks,
and I must say how much I value these informal get-togethers, as much for the
opportunity to discuss and share our thoughts on the readings as for the time
to find the humour in our downtrodden moments, gain clarification or insight on
some aspect of class, or discuss apparent obsessions with pirates and
elephants. My mood is always positive by
the end of a #tiebc session and I am grateful.
In reflecting on my reading and our #tiebc
discussions thus far, Chapter 2, “We, the Memorious“, particularly resonated
with me. However, when we came together, our book club discussion didn’t lean
into this chapter to any great extent. The chapter examines the way people use
technology to record many, and in some cases, all aspects of their lives. There were examples of people who chose to
become virtual “lifeloggers”, recording all aspects of their lives in digital
form, using digital logs to access details and memories that would otherwise be
murky or altogether lost. I was intrigued as I read of MIT speech scientist,
Deb Roy’s, “Total Recall” experiment where he and his wife wired their house to
capture all aspects of their child’s first year.
One particularly interesting phenomenon revealed in
the Roy experiment was the inaccuracies discovered in some of Roy’s own recollection of events; when he looked at video
footage of his son’s first steps, he discovered that “he’d completely
mis-remembered the event” (p. 21). While
the “mis-remembered” aspects of the memory could be considered the less
important details (time of day, sun shining, who was in the room), it is
intriguing to me that our minds have the capability and inclination to fill in any memory gaps with creatively and
logically constructed details, to make the memory complete. I don’t see it as necessarily positive or
negative, but it has me wondering why and at what point in time do these little
shifts in the details of our memory occur? In Roy’s case, it didn't take much
time at all to replace the actual details of the event with his mind’s own
version of the details.
This memory gap-filling phenomenon has me wondering
which details of my own childhood or my children’s early years I have recreated or revised in one way or another. I met with my cousin yesterday and
we briefly reminisced about a shared experience from our own childhood, and there
were distinct differences in how we had “stored” the details of this specific event; certainly
we were able to fill in some of each other’s gaps, but there were startling
differences in what we remembered. He
remembers falling down a hill and hitting his head, of which I have no
recollection, and I remember we wandered for what seemed like hours, lost in
the woods. The location, our ages, and
circumstances all match, but key aspects of the memory have been remembered
very differently. I can see how the
mis-remembered details of more serious events could be problematic. When I think
about the fact that Roy’s mis-memory was skewed within a relatively short time,
you can imagine the potential inaccuracies of recounted events from 10, 20, or
30 years ago.
A potential solution for these memory gaps and mis-memories is the practice of “lifelogging”.
There are varying degrees of lifelogging. At a basic level, for example, my father has, for years,
habitually recorded the date, the weather, his physical activity (run: 52 mins.
along the seawall with Bill), and any other random notables that seem worthy on
a daily basis, without fail. The brevity and consistency of his record keeping
make for a good reference point. When I ask, for example, what restaurant we
ate at after that 10 km race 15 years ago, he can look through his “log” and
tell me. I can see the value of this
habit, but, personally, I can also live quite well without it. Taken to the other extreme, lifelogging with
very intentional and constant recordings and / or photographs seems like an
almost invasive and disruptive way to live one’s life. The idea of technology
documenting all aspects of my life or my home in an ongoing, auto-set kind of
way, is disturbing to me as well. I get
that there might be a time or circumstance where it’s really convenient to be
able to look back at something, but I think I prefer to relying on my less than
reliable grey matter.
In a sense, we are currently engaging in a form of
lifelogging as we look at the prevalence of “selfies” and status updates. Many, if not most, people are never without
their smart phone or tablet, and we regularly engage in logging our lives this
way. It’s perhaps a step away from true
lifelogging, but the outcome is much the same. I think we have to consider how much time we,
as a society, spend doing so and what we are missing as we are immersed in efforts to digitally record our lives. There have been many presentations,
videos and talks to try to emphasize that we are missing much by trying to
capture everything, and I am quick to agree. A great visual of this point is
represented in the short video, I forgot my phone; while the video is, yes, dramatic,
it presents familiar scenarios that many people can relate to.
In considering both the ongoing,
never-miss-a-second recording options for capturing “life” such as that used by
Roy, and society’s current obsession with intentionally capturing meals,
moments, and milestones via Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, and other means of social media, I can’t say that I
see either as completely healthy or necessary. Like most things in life, there’s
undeniable value to social media recordkeeping and documenting aspects of our lives digitally; I, for one, won’t be surprised if lifelogging as a practice becomes increasingly commonplace in the years to come. However, there’s something very personal about our own, grey-matter-based, unrecorded
memories and the fact that no one else can see them exactly as we do, in our
own minds. Those mis-memories, with inaccuracies that are specific to the memory-holder, make for the best stories.
References
deGuzman, Charlene (Charstarlene). (2013, Aug 22). I Forgot My Phone (video file). Retrieved from http://youtu.be/OINa46HeWg8
Thompson, C. (2013). Smarter than you think.
New York, New York: The Penguin Press