The big difference is in HOW MUCH we need to remember. There simply wasn't that much new information to remember Before Writing. An expert story teller in anc

The big difference is in HOW MUCH we need to remember. There simply wasn't that much new information to remember Before Writing. An expert story teller in ancient times probably didn't remember more than a few novels worth of information - far less than I take in in a month - over his lifetime. Others had even less, and most of what they took in was gradual changes in the surrounding environment, not a lot of explicit information (like, to use the original essay's example, telephone numbers; and we don't remember as many phone numbers today as 30 years ago because we're not dialing as many).