alt Hacker NewsCell phones and laptops in general have changed a couple of things for me, as someone who grew up without them:
- I realized about 20y-25y ago that I could run a Web search and find out nearly any fact, probably one-shot but maybe with 2-3 searches' worth of research
- About 10-15y ago I began to have a connected device in my pocket that could do this on request at any time
- About 5y ago I explicitly *stopped* doing it, most of the time, socially. If I'm in the middle of a conversation and a question comes up about a minor fact, I'm not gonna break the flow to pull out my screen and stare at it and answer the question, I'm gonna keep hanging out with the person.
There was this "pub trivia" thing that used to happen in the 80s and 90s where you would see a spirited discussion between people arguing about a small fact which neither of them immediately had at hand. We don't get that much anymore because it's so easy to answer the question -- we've just totally lost it.
I don't miss it, but I have become keenly aware of how tethered my consciousness is to facts available via Web search, and I don't know that I love outsourcing that much of my brain to places beyond my control.
Replies
Take a small notebook, Anki flashcards, or even small notes.
And work on learning some trivia purely to help you out with memory.
I'm just old enough to remember pub trivia before it was possible to look things up with a phone. I firmly maintain that phones ruined pub trivia.
> There was this "pub trivia" thing that used to happen in the 80s and 90s where you would see a spirited discussion between people arguing about a small fact which neither of them immediately had at hand. We don't get that much anymore because it's so easy to answer the question -- we've just totally lost it.
A good example, but imagine the days of our ancestors:
Remember that game we used to play, where we'd find out who could see birds from the farthest distance? Yeah, glasses ruined that.
A long time ago I had the idea that maybe Guinness started a "book of world records" precisely because it answers exactly the kind of question that will routinely pop up at the pub.