Yesterday I had the name of a band on the tip of my tongue, but couldn’t remember it. It drove me crazy. Eventually, I had to go Google it. 70’s rock, sounds like so and so. Nope, couldn’t find it. Then I went to Amazon and rode their recommendation engine for about ten minutes and then BANG I found the name…Bad Company.
Whew. Thought that would kill me.
Every time we cannot remember something in the 21st Century, we rely on a search engine or web database to cough it up for us. Twenty years ago we might call a friend or two, but most of the time we finally came up with it out of our own head.
I think those times were better for us. If our brains can rely on technology to produce stored memories, then they will eventually adapt to remember less and less over time. In the future, we will be idiots without a broadband connection.
The next time you are stuck for a name or a band, resist the tempation to logon and solve it immediately and make your brain do a little hard work. You’ve taught yourself to walk over and talk to a coworker instead of emailing them from twenty feet, consider this an addition to your post-tech boom workout routines.
Otherwise, you are just asking for that memory loss ailment, I can’t remember the name of it right now…it’s on the tip of my tongue.
