Do you have an 'outboard memory'?
Posted 26 October 2007 at 8:37AM by Simon Dickson in Doing business online
There's a great article in WIRED magazine this month, which introduces the concept of the 'outboard brain'. Here's a test for you: what's your own mobile phone number? If you've just reached for your business card, or your mobile itself, don't feel too ashamed. A recent American study found that a third of under-30s had to look it up.
As writer Clive Thompson notes, 'the line between where my memory leaves off and Google picks up is getting blurrier by the second.' We're increasingly surrounded by sources and resources to store our own stuff, and to look other stuff up. Your mobile can store dozens, probably hundreds of other people's phone numbers, so why waste your own brain power memorising them? That same phone probably has online access, giving you access to Google within a matter of seconds. (As I write this, I'm desperately trying to recall a single one of my close family's mobile numbers... and I'm drawing a complete blank.)
For those spending a lot of time online, passwords are a particular problem. We've talked before about password management software; I don't know how I'd cope if I wasn't able to store my passwords within my Firefox browser. But I've recently gone one step further, using Google's Browser Sync extension for Firefox to synchronise all my personal settings between my desktop and laptop. So if I sign up for an online service using my laptop, and store the password in Firefox's vault, the same details will be available on my desktop next time I go online. Of course there are security concerns, and I'd never store life-or-death passwords (like online banking) in any software, never mind sharing them across the web. But I decided the convenience outweighed the concerns.
The same goes for email. With free online services like Gmail and Windows Live Mail offering all the storage space you're ever likely to need, it's often enough to remember that you've 'got an email about that somewhere'... then going online to find it. (If you're a Gmail - sorry, Google Mail - user, give the excellent Gmail Mobile application for mobile phones a try.)
Then of course, there's Wikipedia. We've previously recommended the Opera Mini web browser: it has a Wikipedia search box built into its main interface. But did you know, you can also download it to your iPod for instant access?
Tags: gmail, google browser sync, passwords, wikipedia, windows live mail, wired
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