6 ms·

I've heard from a few family members that ever since they've started using their cell phones, they can't remember anyone's numbers, and they felt this was makin

by dustmop 17y ago

I've heard from a few family members that ever since they've started using their cell phones, they can't remember anyone's numbers, and they felt this was making them stupider. As if memorizing sequences of 7 digits is desirable and conducive to being intelligent. I tried explaining that they shouldn't have to memorize phone numbers - they don't represent anything real, they aren't convenient, and there's no advantage to using them. It's much easier to put a number in your Contacts list and reach someone using their name instead, at which point the technology is strictly empowering, and like TFA says, the number is just for backwards compatibility.

pradocchia 17y ago
Remembering numbers is a form of mental exercise that we used to engage in regularly, and as exercise it was good for the brain, just like stretching. You seem to have the implicit model where the less we burden the brain with mundane tasks, the better, as if we had a fixed daily capacity for thought, or that mundane tasks are somehow wasteful. I'm not sure this is the case--neither that mundane applications of brainpower is burdensome, nor that capacity is fixed. I suspect that someday, after more and more mundane mental tasks are replaced by more automation and better design, a market will emerge for mental fitness clubs to help thin the "fog" that will come to characterize our mental lives..
- Novash 17y ago
  The brain does have a fixed daily capacity, but it is far higher than what we use in average. My prick with phone numbers is not that remembering them on itself is wasteful, but simply that people seem to change phone numbers so often (due to lost, broken, change of company, etc) that I stopped bothering to remember them. Also, I play Sudoku and Dual N-Back in a daily basis to keep my mind sharp.
  - pradocchia 17y ago
    [Unfortunate double post there...] Point taken, though I do suspect there is a qualitative difference between solving Sudoku puzzles and practicing one's capacity for direct recall. Sudoku is algorithmic--you're focused on how to solve, rather than building up an index of solutions which you would then access by key. eg, 6x7 is a key, the lookup yields 42, and you could work it out algorithmically, and that might include methods like "type expression into Google", but imagine if that was all you knew. No index of multiplication tables in your head. When you skimmed a text, your eyes would gloss "6x7" as "multiplication product--undetermined". There might be a pointer to a method to get the answer, but the answer itself wouldn't be directly available. It could be quite crippling. Similarly with language: our facility of direct recall, our capacity for internalization, makes communication possible. If you are consciously working through the grammar that gives meaning to a phase, you have lost the discussion. In programming, we get so much mileage out of the "how" that the "what" becomes incidental. Our mental map is a map of methods, where return values only persist long enough to call the next method. We know how we got there, but hardly remember any landmarks along the way. So with phone numbers, we have lost one more opportunity to train and practice our capacity to create mental indexes to actual data. Why remember one number when you can remember how to get all numbers with less effort? Why store multiple keys when a single function will do? People once developed algorithms to create vast mental indexes, eg. method of loci. One could commit incredible volumes of information to memory with such techniques. Now compare that to the modern person w/ lazy evaluation in place of memorization. In memorization, lookup costs are zero. Consciousness stays focused on the matter at hand. Supporting data is pulled up as needed. Without memorization, consciousness must make repeated detours to supply the supporting data, or gloss over it all together. I'd suggest that mastery of a subject occurs when consciousness can stop making these detours. When you know the behavior of various programming constructs by heart, you can stop checking the reference documentation at every turn. So in aggregate, if you no longer know any phone numbers by heart, you may indeed be getting dumber.
    - Novash 17y ago
      That's why I play Dual-N Back as well. It is an exercise meant to train direct recall, very short-time and short-time memory.
      - pradocchia 17y ago
        Ah, I missed that. Cheers.
pradocchia 17y ago
Remembering numbers is a form of mental exercise that we used to engage in regularly, and as exercise it was good for the brain, just like stretching. You seem to have the implicit model where the less we burden the brain with mundane tasks, the better, as if we had a fixed daily capacity for thought, or that mundane tasks are somehow wasteful. I'm not sure this is the case--neither that mundane applications of brainpower is burdensome, nor that capacity is fixed. I suspect that someday, after more and more mundane mental tasks are replaced by more automation and better design, a market will emerge for mental fitness clubs to help thin the "fog" that will come to characterize our mental lives..
zokier 17y ago
The problem is that there are lot of situations where you need to make a phone call with a phone that isn't yours. Most common one, especially with modern smartphones, is that your phones battery is dead. In such situations its helpful to remember phone numbers.
Zaak 17y ago
The problem with not memorizing phone numbers occurs when you don't have your contacts list with you. Automatic synchronization of your list to multiple places is a partial solution.

by dustmop 17y ago

pradocchia 17y ago

Remembering numbers is a form of mental exercise that we used to engage in regularly, and as exercise it was good for the brain, just like stretching. You seem to have the implicit model where the less we burden the brain with mundane tasks, the better, as if we had a fixed daily capacity for thought, or that mundane tasks are somehow wasteful. I'm not sure this is the case--neither that mundane applications of brainpower is burdensome, nor that capacity is fixed. I suspect that someday, after more and more mundane mental tasks are replaced by more automation and better design, a market will emerge for mental fitness clubs to help thin the "fog" that will come to characterize our mental lives..

Novash 17y ago
The brain does have a fixed daily capacity, but it is far higher than what we use in average. My prick with phone numbers is not that remembering them on itself is wasteful, but simply that people seem to change phone numbers so often (due to lost, broken, change of company, etc) that I stopped bothering to remember them. Also, I play Sudoku and Dual N-Back in a daily basis to keep my mind sharp.
- pradocchia 17y ago
  [Unfortunate double post there...] Point taken, though I do suspect there is a qualitative difference between solving Sudoku puzzles and practicing one's capacity for direct recall. Sudoku is algorithmic--you're focused on how to solve, rather than building up an index of solutions which you would then access by key. eg, 6x7 is a key, the lookup yields 42, and you could work it out algorithmically, and that might include methods like "type expression into Google", but imagine if that was all you knew. No index of multiplication tables in your head. When you skimmed a text, your eyes would gloss "6x7" as "multiplication product--undetermined". There might be a pointer to a method to get the answer, but the answer itself wouldn't be directly available. It could be quite crippling. Similarly with language: our facility of direct recall, our capacity for internalization, makes communication possible. If you are consciously working through the grammar that gives meaning to a phase, you have lost the discussion. In programming, we get so much mileage out of the "how" that the "what" becomes incidental. Our mental map is a map of methods, where return values only persist long enough to call the next method. We know how we got there, but hardly remember any landmarks along the way. So with phone numbers, we have lost one more opportunity to train and practice our capacity to create mental indexes to actual data. Why remember one number when you can remember how to get all numbers with less effort? Why store multiple keys when a single function will do? People once developed algorithms to create vast mental indexes, eg. method of loci. One could commit incredible volumes of information to memory with such techniques. Now compare that to the modern person w/ lazy evaluation in place of memorization. In memorization, lookup costs are zero. Consciousness stays focused on the matter at hand. Supporting data is pulled up as needed. Without memorization, consciousness must make repeated detours to supply the supporting data, or gloss over it all together. I'd suggest that mastery of a subject occurs when consciousness can stop making these detours. When you know the behavior of various programming constructs by heart, you can stop checking the reference documentation at every turn. So in aggregate, if you no longer know any phone numbers by heart, you may indeed be getting dumber.
  - Novash 17y ago
    That's why I play Dual-N Back as well. It is an exercise meant to train direct recall, very short-time and short-time memory.
    - pradocchia 17y ago
      Ah, I missed that. Cheers.

pradocchia 17y ago

zokier 17y ago

The problem is that there are lot of situations where you need to make a phone call with a phone that isn't yours. Most common one, especially with modern smartphones, is that your phones battery is dead. In such situations its helpful to remember phone numbers.

Zaak 17y ago

The problem with not memorizing phone numbers occurs when you don't have your contacts list with you. Automatic synchronization of your list to multiple places is a partial solution.