Hello again!

I lost a post I was preparing three weeks ago before my long trip (the website crashed and I couldn't get it back again, which reminds me, I shouldn't write these on line...)

Anyway, I'll get to what I was writing about back then on another time.

Right now I want to discuss something that's been bothering me for quite a while: I've just gotten back from the aforementioned long trip overseas, where I had a tragic accident with my photo camera (I accidentally erased all the photos from two thirds of our trip... which means Madrid, Toledo and Paris are all gone... my wife almost killed me as you can imagine), and that brough back the idea of a concept that's been tumbling in mi mind: social memories.

+ I remember when I was a young kid (25-30 years ago) when my family and I got together and we started to discuss our favorite TV shows. Back then you had to re-rell your favorite plot so everyone could remember it (Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes always got confused...)

+ You had very little TV programming options, which meant at the next day EVERYONE had watched the same show the night before and we all discussed it at school, which became a really cool social tool.

+ I've always been a huge fan of classic horror films and my goal was to have WATCHED the most important ones spoken about in fanzines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland, which led to sleepless nights trying to catch them at a late late movie on TV...

+ Arcade games were to be played and enjoyed at, well, arcades...

+ To watch yourself in action, you had to rely on 8mm or Super 8 movie formats, which were clumsy and expensive (if you were lucky you could have 5 - 10 minutes of your childhood on film to be viewed at a later age).

Fast forward to the 21st century, when if you want to remember the plot and who starred on an old TV show, you can check it out on imdb, YouTube, or buy it at your nearest DVD dealer; aside from rare exceptions, everyone watches different TV shows every night; you don't mind about watching, cherrishing and remembering each frame of a movie, you collect them (and sometimes you don't even bother to open the packages); if you want to remember an old video game, you check it out in the internet (and usually find odd how you enjoyed them when they now seem so lame...); you can record hours and hours of family videos which will be locked somewhere since they are unwatchable because of their lenght, or in the best scenario will be edited on your PC for later viewing.

I don't want to sound like a grumpy old man reminiscing about "the good ole' days", but it worries me what repercussions these changes will have on our brains and our memories. Will they become more efficient since we don't have to keep useless information in our brain because that information is easily accessible through digital sources, or will they become more lazy?  I honestly don't know the answer.

I truly want to explore this further and in more depth, but I wanted to put it out there and see what you all think (hey, maybe I'll steal some of your ideas!)

Have a nice Wednesday.