The New Paradigm

[Caterina Gasparini]

We are being overloaded with an incredible amount of information, from which it seems difficult to select what we are looking for. Besides, not always can we immediately assess the value of the information we get. Young people in particular tend to move from one screen to another, whether it is a TV screen to a PC screen, without making great distinction between them: at the same time the differences between virtual reality and non-virtual reality seem to be less definite, the boundaries between fiction or game and reality are less clear, so that it may become nearly impossible to separate them.

One of the objections that the Church made to the printing press was that it would destroy memory. Of course, the Church was primarily concerned with losing control of the communication process, but they clearly had a point. The printed book did reduce the need to hold all information in the head (as long as you could read – another thing the Church was against the peasants from doing).

The internet has clearly affected the motivating for remembering information. In fact, if I come across any interesting information, I either put it on my website or post it on the forum. When I need this information later, I carry out a search of my website or the forum. Pre-1997 I would have tried to hold this information in my head. My memory was definitely better then but I clearly forgot more than I do today. Even if I usually need to go to the computer to get that information.

Probably the technological devices we are using to store the great amount of information we normally receive are influencing the way we are using memory as well.

I find it very interesting when John says that pre-1997 his memory was better than it is now but he used to forget more than he does today.

We find it useful to have devices which may replace our memory in remembering data, but storing information implies classifying and organizing it so that we may feel "rid of it" and just keep what we need at the moment.

Which means that we are constantly applying strategies to select what we actually need from what can be stored because irrelevant at present. This already takes a part of our time.

Anyway, this can permit us to accomplish our immediate tasks more efficiently, by focusing our attention on what we need at that precise moment.

But it might also involve the risk of losing something, like the ability to keep in view all the aspects of complex situations or keeping in mind the past to attempt a forecast of the future.

Is it wrong to venture that, while feeling free from the unbearable burden of keeping all the information we get at every second of our lives, we might get out of training and risk to lose the sense of history or the historical perspective?

[John Simkin]

I find it very interesting when John says that pre-1997 his memory was better than it is now but he used to forget more than he does today.

We find it useful to have devices which may replace our memory in remembering data, but storing information implies classifying and organizing it so that we may feel "rid of it" and just keep what we need at the moment.

One of the reasons I have more trouble remembering inforation concerns the ageing process. I recently read that after the age of 40 the brain has increasing problems finding infomation from the memory bank. The information is there, it just becomes more difficult to find it. That it why the "search" function of your website is so important.

Is it wrong to venture that, while feeling free from the unbearable burden of keeping all the information we get at every second of our lives, we might get out of training and risk to lose the sense of history or the historical perspective?

This is an interesting point. However, I think the arrival of the internet has increased our ability to get a sense of history. The problems of memory, post-internet, meant that we were constantly using the memory as a form of crisis-management. The building of a data-base of information makes it much easier to ask interesting questions about the past.

[John Simkin]

Caterina Gasparini presentation can be seen on video here:

http://vimeo.com/1982680