Activity 5.4: Information Processing in Context: Is Memory Changing in This Technologically-Rich Age?

Activity 5.4: Information Processing in Context: Is Memory Changing in This Technologically-Rich Age?

Right now, I have four PowerPoint lectures and a Word document open on my PC “desktop;” two articles, Writing Guidelines, my notebook, and William James’s book on my actual desktop.  I think that all of this material is moving into my working memory, between short-term (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).  I learn by retrieving ideas and knowledge from my LTM and consolidate it with the new knowledge in my working memory, in order to assimilate and accommodate the development of new schema, before I can store it back in to my LTM. It feels like information overload to me, but during this process, I am building up a personal store of new, stronger memories, that sharpens my mind and makes “it easier to learn ideas and new skills in the future” (p. 192).  Nicholas Carr (2010) seems to support the Piagetian Constructivist approach to learning, and feels that the Web has become a “substitute for personal memory” (p. 192) because we skip the consolidation process. For this consolidation process to be successful, it requires attentiveness, which is the key to meaningful association with existing knowledge in LTM. James (1899/2001) has an entire talk/chapter on the importance of both passive and deliberate attention for learning. He defines the psychological, attentive process, as “Attention to an object is what takes place whenever that object most completely occupies the mind” (p. 54).  Working on the Web involves moving and processing lots of information quickly, “without sustained attention” (p. 194), so rather than remembering, we must forget much of the material, or we have working memory overload. We no longer need to remember, since information is stored on the Web, so we become what Carr calls, “shallow thinkers”, which is from his book title, The Shallows. 

I like Carr’s discussion about choices we make, about how and what we think, which brings us to free will. I choose not to own a smart phone because I do not want to become one of those people constantly attached to technology, on the Web or texting instead of interacting with the people in the same room with me, as if they have an addiction. I do use technology (i.e. I Pad, Netbook, desktop, Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, Pandora … ), do not get me wrong, but I also choose to read physical books that I hold in my hand, I get the local daily newspaper and subscribe to several magazines in print. I print most of the material I want to read from the Web. I choose to allow this information (input), to be processed (sensory registers including, attention, perception, sensory limitations, duration and intensity, impact of imagery, role of context, physical and psychological environment, and meaningfulness), then move back and forth between STM, LTM and retrieval (RET). James said, “The connecting is the thinking; and, if we attend clearly to the connection, the connected thing will certainly be likely to remain within recall” (p. 70).

Carr’s discussion about culture and memory was very interesting in that individuals have memory influenced by their culture, as their culture creates collective memories in each individual.  The global effects of the Net are such that there is a danger that we may become “pancake people – spread wide and thin” (p. 196), if we do not maintain our unique culture in our minds and in those of future generations; “outsource memory, and culture withers” (p. 197).