The Scam Called "You Don't Have to Remember Anything"

Summary

The Scam Called “You Don't Have to Remember Anything” Dear Zettlers, This scam is decades old now and it is quite surprising that people still fall for it. The search engines, old note-taking apps (you know, those with an elephant icon and the like) and AI have something in common: They claim that the effort of remembering things is outdated like using a candle in the age of electric light. The following is, by the way, from my Zettelkasten (2016): To find what you need online, you require a solid general education and, above all, prior knowledge in the area related to your search. Original in German: Was man braucht, um im Netz fündig zu werden, ist eine solide Grundbildung und vor allem Vorwissen in dem Bereich, in dem sich die Suche bewegt. —Manfred Spitzer, Digitale Demenz Culturally, it is increasingly the case that the first step is to go online, search for the a desired end result of a thinking process instead of engaging in learning. This means that we are using the internet less and less to our advantage, because we have less and less prior knowledge: We detrain ourselves out of the ability to access the quality of the information and turn it into actual knowledge. Rowlands et al. wrote about the so called “digital natives” that they lack the critical and analytical thinking skills to evaluate the information they find on the internet. We need a fully developed mental map of the subject in order to derive value from the results of an internet search. In short: You need a trained brain to actually benefit from the internet. The advertised benefits of all these tools come with a specific hidden cost: Your ability to think. Let’t take a closer look at the digital natives, since this issue is more accessible. They put themselves in a situation in which there is a vastly reduced incentive structure to evaluate the information critically. They use surface level indicators if the information matches the request. This behaviour has some obvious effects (in hindsigh...