Michael Schell can relate. Last summer, while at the beach, he
accidentally took a dip in the ocean with his PDA/cellphone in his
pocket. It went dead. Immediately, he felt as if his entire world
had sunk into a technological abyss. He couldn't receive calls, but
even worse, he found himself completely isolated from business
associates and friends. "Because we have a
PDA or computer, we
don't make any attempt to remember information," he observes.
"Then, if we damage or lose the device, the panic is enormous."
For Stephen Ciesinski, CEO of Laszlo Systems, a San Mateo,
California, web software development firm, the story is similar. In
times past, he stored numerous phone numbers, addresses, and other
information in his brain. Now it's held on a computer and a
PDA/cellphone. "Part of the problem is that even if a person wants
to memorize personal information, it's no longer possible," he
says. He estimates that his PDA holds more than 3,000 contacts,
each with fax numbers, e-mail addresses, and multiple phone
numbers. That amounts to somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000
data fields.
Now, Ciesinski says, the challenge is recalling which pieces of
information reside on which gadget, finding the right piece when he
needs it, and operating all the devices and software that preserve
it. The last bastion of human memory? "I still keep track of
birthdays and important anniversaries in my head," he boasts.
TOTAL RECALL
Although it's tempting to demonize these devices as human memory
killers, Michael Epstein, a professor of psychology at Rider
University, says history is littered with memory-saving tools. From
the abacus to the electronic calculator, from the printed address
book to the modern contact manager, humans have always tried to
simplify their thinking.