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Im 45, and i can tell you getting a cell phone absolutely destroyed my ability to memorize phone numbers. During the 90s when i was in highschool i has all my friends numbers, parents work numbers, etc... memorized, i only know my parents and wife now.

If you don't use a skill, that skill atrophies

by chrononaut11 hours ago|

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> If you don't use a skill, that smo atrophies

I don't think the _ability_ to memorize phone numbers is what atrophied here by getting a cell phone. The _need_ did. It's harder to memorize phone numbers today because we lack the practical application of the memory (e.g. only when something fails do we actually try to put that memory to practice). I bet anyone would quickly pick up on memorizing phone numbers if they had to both remember and type in the phone numbers every time they wanted to make a call or text.

by mitxela11 hours ago|

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The ability atrophied because it was not practiced because there was no need.

by sodapopcan9 hours ago|

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Maybe as per usual, I think we all mostly remembered so many numbers thanks to pattern recognition. I'm old enough to have had a rotary phone in the basement growing that I used less than the various other keypad phones in the house. Whenever I was dialing (literally) a newly learned number on the rotary phone, I to think of what it looked like on touchpad first. Although very quickly I'd get to know the rotary pattern as well.

Of course, this is likely totally a regular memory device people would use. I've done no reading on this so, so if Socrates was wary of writing, was he also wary of pattern recognition or drawing as memory aids?

by alchemism3 minutes ago|

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Back in Socrates time, masters of rhetoric used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci to memorize long texts without reading or writing. Something was definitely lost as something was gained.

by globular-toast4 hours ago|

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I still remember to this day our house phone number and the numbers of my family, friends and even a payphone down the road, all from 30+ years ago.

I don't even know my partner's number, or email address...

by sodapopcan12 hours ago|

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...which can come in handy. Sometimes your cellphone battery dies. I still know my parents' numbers from memory (as well as some of my friends' parents' numbers, though that isn't super useful) but I am concerned about it sometimes.

by sakjur4 hours ago|

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I still dial my parents by number rather than using their contact largely to keep that memory fresh and flexed.

by 2718312 hours ago|

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> I think the trade off worthwhile, however.

But what if it isn't? Like, if you didn't have the written word to rely on as a crutch, what more could you have accomplished if you didn't have that? Maybe nothing, but maybe much, much more! Who can say in retrospect?

I've always wondered how we'd fare in battle against an extrasolar civilization which achieved technology without writing. They'd be a hell of a lot scarier than we are, in my view.

by UpsideDownRide5 hours ago|

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Being able to pass on precise information without writing them down would be hella impressive in of itself. Currently we fail with simplest ones after a few hops.