”we the memorious” analysis

“We, the memorious” analysis- Textual Analysis

In a chapter of a book titled “We, the memorious”, the chapter begins by asking the reader how a child says his or her first words. Is it by listening to their parents say the word constantly? To answer the question scientists have asked parents to record the amount of words they say to their kids each day on a diary. However, the parents always fail to do so. The story then goes on to tell the story of Roy (who works as a speech scientist) who’s wife just gave birth to their first child. They decided to experiment on him and they did so by putting up cameras and “wiring” their entire house. He made his students analyze the footage, to which they concluded that infants listen more when they are in a smaller space, and the patterns of how their child started forming one word, to 2 words to form a sentence. When Roy looks through the footage, he begins to notice things about his child he would have never noticed if he had not put cameras on his house. He witnesses his son's first steps, the story then takes a turn once it talks about how he remembered being with his wife while it happened when in reality he was with his mom, revealing that the story is in fact about memory rather than the development of how a child learns to speak. Looking through the cameras he also notices his father's last moments with Roy’s son before his death. Roy then talks about how memories can become foggy after time. The author then explains the psychology of forgetting by explaining the Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting. Which practically explains that the more time goes by the more you forget, it is also revealed that after you learn something the more your memory decays. The story then goes on to talk about Bell (a lifelogger) he would record everything in his life and every interaction he would have in society, and because of this he would remember every conversation he had. The chapters overall purpose is to tell the reader the importance of memory and how technological advancements are finding ways to capture them for us.

“Memories is one of the most crucial parts of our identities.”

After reading this chapter of “Smarter than you think” it helped me realise that memory is a very important concept. Memory can help us identify our emotions, it can also help us remember and memorize important things, it can also help us understand ourselves and to realize how we became the people we are today. I liked the part when the author stated that in modern culture, people become obsessed with culture in the past. This is interesting because people can see the trends of the past and how they slowly managed to form and help develop the trends of modern-day culture. The chapter also proves that technology also plays a key role on memory. Inventions such cameras and phones can help trigger memories from the past, by providing us with old photos and videos. Social media is another form of technology which can also help trigger the past. From the push of a button  we can look at old messages which reveal things we liked and enjoyed when we were younger. But we can also chose to keep whichever memories we want to keep by deleting files, and storing data. Being capable to forget things isn’t as bad as the passage make you think. Forgetting can help you forget unnecessary things which can either be traumatic or devastating. Forgetting helps people move forward, and let go of unpleasant things. However, memory can also help people with happiness and self-identity. So in a way memory can be both a pro or a con.