This was originally posted 16 years ago. Opinions, facts and reality may have changed.
Just had a call from my girlfriend. Nothing unusual in that, we speak most days.
The unusual part was that she called the landline, when normally she’d call my mobile. She’d left her mobile at home, so had to go hunting for my work number to give me a call.
Of all the people in the world, my girlfriend is the person I speak to most on the phone – and yet she doesn’t know my mobile number off the top of her head. Which is fair enough, as I don’t know hers either.
We don’t remember numbers any more. Maybe some “historic” ones – your Mum’s when it’s the same one she’s had since you lived there for example – but not numbers you’ve collected in recent years. They go straight into your mobile and are forgotten about. When you want to call someone, you either call them straight from the mobile or type the number on your mobile’s screen into your landline.
I don’t think I’m unusual in this regard: numbers I collect either go into my mobile or into Address Book on my Mac, and all of these numbers are synchronised in the ether via MobileMe. Why would I bother trying to remember numbers when I have instant access to them whenever they’re needed?
For phone numbers – read “facts”. In a world where Google and Wikipedia are available on your phone wherever you’ve got 3G or wifi access… why bother remembering anything? Information becomes something fleeting, answers found, answers used, then quickly forgotten.
It’s a broad brush stereotype (and on the off-chance she’s reading this, it’s definitely not aimed at my girlfriend or anybody else I know!) but it does feel sometimes as if facts – dates, phone numbers, facts, general knowledge – have all become transient and ephemeral. We only keep them in our heads for a limited amount of time, whilst they’re useful to us, then they’re forgotten.
I’m not sure whether this is a positive thing or not; with the news that “we” create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003, is it a surprise that we’re overwhelmed with the sheer volume of “things to know” ?
Not saying I have an answer to that question. It just got me thinking… that’s all. 🙂
(Note: I’m well-known for being the kind of guy who remembers trivia – in short, a male – yet forget important things like birthdays etc. of the people I truly do care about. Which is why I have an iPhone, a Mac and MobileMe as outlined above! It’s often been said to me, if it’s not in the iPhone that it doesn’t exist – and there’s possibly some truth in that. Right, that’s my defence in first…!)