one, i used to know all of my family members’ birthdays. well i still know them, but a day doesn’t register because of its number anymore. i also used to know all their phone numbers, but i recently had to scour through old phone bills and try to find the right matches on numbers to determine what they were. people who i might have no other way of reaching unless they called me on a new cell phone that my wife didn’t drop in the toilet.

today, i actually had to bring a credit card with me so that i could give a refinancing guy the number. i used to know that shit off-hand. and it definitely has to do with my dependence on technology remembering things for me.

You’re certainly right that technology can allow us easier access to a much greater depth of information, but I’m not sure that the digitization of trivial information is directly linked to it. It seems like it probably does give us more time, so if we choose, we can use it to know more truly useful stuff.

So, I guess you’re right. It’s both a good point (that I’m slightly embarrassed to have missed), and a welcome innovation.

What you forgot to mention, though, is that by relying on technology to help us with the daily minutia, we are freeing our brains for duties that would make a blackberry self-destruct.

Suddenly we have access to information on a level unimaginable even fifteen years ago, and our society is benefiting from it.

Technology - while it makes us all a little forgetful - will allow us a depth of knowledge beyond our ancestors.