The modern world’s effect on our ability to remember has got an ugly name. But digital amnesia is not a one-way street. Technology may be helping us to remember more than it has caused us to forget.
A young American celebrates the historic news of August 9, 1974.
flickr/Pip R. Lagenta
An individual may remember and forget what he or she likes, but once a version of past events is accepted and shared by a group, as a collective construction, it is on public record.
We’re more likely to recall memories and information we’ve used frequently rather than those obtained at a particular age.
Kristo-Gothard Hunor/Shutterstock
People with dementia judge the passage of time differently, and can access remote memories from many decades ago while being unable to remember events of the past few hours.
The average age of survivors is now 80. In five years, very few of these first-hand witnesses will be around to remember the event. Many of their stories are in danger of being lost forever.
Could we all do what Nigel Richards did?
Yui Mok / PA Archive
Fiona Kumfor, Neuroscience Research Australia dan Sicong Tu, Neuroscience Research Australia
The brain is truly a marvel. A seemingly endless library, whose shelves house our most precious memories as well as our lifetime’s knowledge. But is there a point where it reaches capacity?
You can do a lot while you sleep.
Woman via www.shutterstock.com.
We strengthen memories while we sleep, and researchers have found a way to cue that process to help people better retain information that counters implicit biases.
Memory makes us human but also sometimes inhumane.
Trung Bui Viet
Though Kazuo Ishiguro makes us wonder whether remembering is really better than forgetting, he also makes it clear that the answer is irrelevant. Remembering is our fate.
Now, don’t distract me while I’m doing this.
Senior with smartphone via Firma V/www.shutterstock.com
Do you remember where you were when you heard about the 9/11 attacks? Or about the bombing at the Boston Marathon? Those are flashbulb memories – vivid, detailed and imperfect.
NBC news anchor Brian Williams and his memory “conflation” have become the media story.
Phil McCarten / Reuters
Many of us have asked ourselves in the past few days: can you really falsely remember something as significant as being in a helicopter that was shot down? And many of us probably think “No way,” and quickly…
A Western diet may be negatively affecting your brain not just your belly.
Jams
Do you eat only when you’re actually hungry? Many of us eat even when our bodies don’t need food. Just the thought of food entices us to eat. We think about food when we see other people eating, when we…
Selma director and co-writer Ava DuVernay has crafted a new and important vision of an oft-examined era in our nation’s history.
Stanley Wolfson/Library of Congress
Hollywood films that depict American history deeply influence our sense of national identity. Films that portray Civil Rights and Black Freedom history are particularly important. Beyond entertaining moviegoers…