michelej1
04-16-2008, 02:25 PM
The Kansas City Star
http://www.kansascity.com/news/neighborhood/leawood/story/576716.html
Denise Snodell: My brain works in a satellite office
The moral of the story up front: Memory glitches might NOT be related to getting older. I discovered this in the hair salon.
It makes sense. When a person is stuck in the hair chair for a pre-ordained amount of time, he or she reflects. Not just in the mirror, but in the head. And because I opt to have my three grayish hairs dealt with, the whole process for me can take a while.
I always chat away with my young, hip stylist and read magazines. But for a good chunk of the “do session,” I sit there, convincing myself it’s the lighting that makes my image in the mirror resemble Richard Nixon. Wet, slicked back hair doesn’t help either.
I’ve learned to accept the Nixon thing, because it must be the lighting, so I’m left with plenty of time to pay attention to my thoughts.
This brings me to the memory theory. The last time I was in the chair, I experienced a eureka moment. It started when the salon unfortunately piped in music from my personal collection of “CDs I Would Never, Ever Own. Ever.”
I braced myself to endure tunes from a time I’d rather not relive. I thought, “Oh, no, it’s Stevie Nicks and her band. Her band…? What was the name of her band? I see their faces. Their puffy shirts. But the band’s name?” (See *footnote below.)
I was thrown by this unsettling memory malfunction, which, like the budding Tricky Dicky jowls, might ultimately involve impending age. Then, in a flash of a-ha, which I’ll get to soon, I attributed the recall glitch to an outside force. Just like the bad lighting excuse.
But first I had to go through the entire haircut with a furrowed brow. What was that band’s name? The tall guy with the vests. Stevie in her flowing gossamer skirts. That overplayed Bill Clinton campaign song…
As my stylist snipped away, I calmed myself by visualizing a run home to the computer and a quick Google. I’d just type in “Stevie Nicks” or “tall guy with vests” and, voila, an instant answer would appear. I figured, who needs a hippocampus when there’s DSL and Ask.com.?
That’s when it hit me: My brain has a satellite office. I’ve become dependent on Internet search engines instead of my own memory. I’m getting lazy. I have a dot-com dependence.
So my theory, in a nutshell, is that Google and its competitors — not age — might cause recall atrophy. Maybe this hypothesis has already been tested. (I’ll check my search bar later with “lazy + forgetting irritating band names.”)
Let’s say this presumption has merit. It pains me to think how many times I’ve pathetically wondered things like, “Who was that actor in the movie ‘Meatballs’? Oh, I’ll check the computer later.” Other times, I’ve had loftier musings: “That guy Ernest, the ‘Farewell to Arms’ author…what the heck is his last name? Beard. Key West. Booze. How could I possibly blank on this?” It was never a problem with Yahoo at my fingertips.
I’ve been living a life of For Whom the Dell Trolls. But no more.
Next time I get my hair cut, I might find myself staring in the mirror thinking, “I resemble that president guy. The one who posed with Elvis. Watergate. The dog, Checkers. Something Milhous What?” If I blank for a while, I’ll force myself to organically conjure the factoid.
And once I doggedly remember on my own, I’ll spend the rest of the time cursing the lighting.
*Footnote: Fleetwood Mac
http://www.kansascity.com/news/neighborhood/leawood/story/576716.html
Denise Snodell: My brain works in a satellite office
The moral of the story up front: Memory glitches might NOT be related to getting older. I discovered this in the hair salon.
It makes sense. When a person is stuck in the hair chair for a pre-ordained amount of time, he or she reflects. Not just in the mirror, but in the head. And because I opt to have my three grayish hairs dealt with, the whole process for me can take a while.
I always chat away with my young, hip stylist and read magazines. But for a good chunk of the “do session,” I sit there, convincing myself it’s the lighting that makes my image in the mirror resemble Richard Nixon. Wet, slicked back hair doesn’t help either.
I’ve learned to accept the Nixon thing, because it must be the lighting, so I’m left with plenty of time to pay attention to my thoughts.
This brings me to the memory theory. The last time I was in the chair, I experienced a eureka moment. It started when the salon unfortunately piped in music from my personal collection of “CDs I Would Never, Ever Own. Ever.”
I braced myself to endure tunes from a time I’d rather not relive. I thought, “Oh, no, it’s Stevie Nicks and her band. Her band…? What was the name of her band? I see their faces. Their puffy shirts. But the band’s name?” (See *footnote below.)
I was thrown by this unsettling memory malfunction, which, like the budding Tricky Dicky jowls, might ultimately involve impending age. Then, in a flash of a-ha, which I’ll get to soon, I attributed the recall glitch to an outside force. Just like the bad lighting excuse.
But first I had to go through the entire haircut with a furrowed brow. What was that band’s name? The tall guy with the vests. Stevie in her flowing gossamer skirts. That overplayed Bill Clinton campaign song…
As my stylist snipped away, I calmed myself by visualizing a run home to the computer and a quick Google. I’d just type in “Stevie Nicks” or “tall guy with vests” and, voila, an instant answer would appear. I figured, who needs a hippocampus when there’s DSL and Ask.com.?
That’s when it hit me: My brain has a satellite office. I’ve become dependent on Internet search engines instead of my own memory. I’m getting lazy. I have a dot-com dependence.
So my theory, in a nutshell, is that Google and its competitors — not age — might cause recall atrophy. Maybe this hypothesis has already been tested. (I’ll check my search bar later with “lazy + forgetting irritating band names.”)
Let’s say this presumption has merit. It pains me to think how many times I’ve pathetically wondered things like, “Who was that actor in the movie ‘Meatballs’? Oh, I’ll check the computer later.” Other times, I’ve had loftier musings: “That guy Ernest, the ‘Farewell to Arms’ author…what the heck is his last name? Beard. Key West. Booze. How could I possibly blank on this?” It was never a problem with Yahoo at my fingertips.
I’ve been living a life of For Whom the Dell Trolls. But no more.
Next time I get my hair cut, I might find myself staring in the mirror thinking, “I resemble that president guy. The one who posed with Elvis. Watergate. The dog, Checkers. Something Milhous What?” If I blank for a while, I’ll force myself to organically conjure the factoid.
And once I doggedly remember on my own, I’ll spend the rest of the time cursing the lighting.
*Footnote: Fleetwood Mac