Douglas Coupland and William Gibson discuss culture, technology, and the craft of writing. Communications technologies are a global memory prosthesis, says Gibson, and aspire to an experience in which distinctions between the "virtual" and the "real" are dissolved. We are already the borg, Gibson says.
http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/douglas-coupland-william-gibson/
Alex Krotoski asks what the digital world tells us about ourselves. This week: Memory. How are digital devices changing our memories and our perception of intelligence?
Evolving digital technology has provided a steady aid for people in their quest to remember virtually everything. Social networking sites remind you of friends’ birthdays, digital calendars send you reminders, and photos posted online preserve memories indefinitely.
But Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, author of Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, argues that now is the time to reintroduce our ability to forget. The indelible digital memory can be as unforgiving as it is helpful. Mayer-Shonberger suggests an expiration date for information.
Mayer-Shonberger talks about his book, Delete, with Neal Conan, and makes his case for why forgetting is essential.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114045279
Susan Blackmore on memory…
Psychologist Susan Blackmore investigates how we are outsourcing the memory of our lives to digital devices and asks whether that is changing the nature of human memory. She hears from a ‘lifelogger’ who is recording every detail of his daily life - and from an academic who has taped 220,000 hours of audio and video of his infant son. She asks whether we will all end up doing the same and how this will affect the way we remember our own lives.
Tagged with memory susan blackmore psychology digital preservation