alt Hacker NewsI use Anki to learn French, Chess openings/tactics/techniques, to unscramble letters for scrabble, for Pub Trivia... The options are kind of limitless.
As a mid-30s guy who has well passed the neuroplasticity of his teen years, it's a godsend for me.
To echo the author's thoughts though, I can't prove empirically that I learn more effectively using Anki (or spaced repetition) than other methods... Only anecdotally. I have a shockingly poor memory, but now I'm B2 certified in French and an ~1800 Elo on chess.com .
Do I still forget things all the time? Yes.
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I think deliberate practice is what's really core to improving any skill, including memory.
Spaced repetition is an effective way to review things but its biggest benefit is a process that's easy to be consistent with.
Somebody else can have equal or better performance with other technique but just like dieting, it doesnt matter as much what method you use as long as you stick with it.
Really curious exactly how you learn things like chess with flash cards. French makes sense as I would guess you just have a word or phrase in both languages.
What do you do for topics like chess?
When I was doing rote memorization and flashcards frequently (some years ago now) I observed that remembering things became a lot easier for me.
I also find my verbal fluency is directly affected by how much pure social time I have in my schedule. It makes me think its one of those 'use it or lose it' things and that I need to schedule more time with people.
Practicing your retrieval is actually one of the best ways to retain knowledge of something. Flashcard programs like Anki are really great because it identifies where you need more work and drills you on your weak points -- it feels awkward working constantly on your weak points, but you get quantifiably better results with the flashcard method it uses.
Some people criticize flashcards as optimizing for rote memorization and deemphasizing understanding, but you'll never achieve understanding or mastery in general without a solid platform of knowledge to work from.