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Experienced that myself with both photography and finding drive paths. Enjoying moments and remembering things.
I’d blame smartphones but maybe more overall modern e-behavior for all this. I have a habit of saving interesting “memes” or screenshots of some useful quotes, book pages etc. from around 20-25 years ago - back then, if I wanted to show something to my friends, I could only download funny pictures to not have to pay for downloading them again, or copy to my removable HDD and go to my friend to show him; fast forward, I have thousands of these gathered, probably up to 100k, but never named them with any useful tags so probably I can just remove it as well or wait until retirement so I can go through then and filter whatever has any meaning left - but in no way I’d remember what the text was about. This is a problem because when I want to bring up a story to share or an argument in a debate, I miss details that make it complete.
Furthermore, recently I started reading a book after quite a break - not for entertainment but to learn for some course I’m taking. Not super interesting but I have to memorize a lot of it. So I was reading and having an impression that none of that actually remains in my mind.
I’m on my way back but it will take time. Somehow I have no problem remembering one-time phone numbers for couple moments, PESEL (national ID) numbers of all my family members, my 26-digit bank account number or a set of IKEA warehouse locations, but that’s the only tower my brain managed to defend. 
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Thank you, @urszula, for another thought-provoking post.
We Have Become Japanese Tourists
Taking photos of oneself with a film camera required that the camera have a self-timer. Canon popularized the self-timer (according to this article) seventy years ago.
It should be no surprise that a Japanese company did this. I recently watched a fictional movie from the late 1990s, when there were few cellphones and no cameras in them. The movie included scenes of Japanese tourists. The Americans in the movie remarked at how much the Japanese tourists loved to photograph themselves everywhere they went. I personally witnessed this many times while living in the 1980s in Los Angeles – a popular destination for Japanese tourists.
So, that movie made me realize that we have become Japanese tourists, thanks to today’s selfie-enabling smartphones.
We Have Become News Readers
Your post reminded me of a thought that I had last week about how many of us interact with smartphones. When friends or relatives are discussing something, someone in the group may search for the answer on a smartphone, finding the text – or now more often the photo – that resolves the dispute.
There often no longer is any shame in not remembering something, and that quick “research” is behavior akin to being a news reader on television, with the actual research being performed by someone else.
So, smartphone cameras have made it easy for us to become news readers, not true observers of our world with a responsibility to remember what we saw.
Stolen Camera Equipment → Richer Memories
A fellow traveler in a group tour before smartphone cameras were a “thing” noticed that I had a digital SLR and telephoto lens with me. I asked him what camera equipment he used. He said that he no longer traveled with cameras. I asked why, given that he seemed to know a lot about them.
He explained that he once had a lot of nice camera equipment but that it was all stolen from his hotel room on an earlier trip. He decided after that theft that he would simply enjoy absorbing everything that he could on any future vacation without lugging around cameras and lenses.
Put simply, no camera meant richer memories.
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I find this very interesting. I am waiting for my Kompakt and am happy that it doesn’t have top spec camera. I plan on not using the camera phone and being much more intentional taking photos with my DSLR. I am over the digital clutter of all the uninspired photos and yes, not even really remembering the experience those photos represent.
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- “being much more intentional”
- “digital clutter of all the uninspired photos”
- “not even really remembering the experience those photos represent”
^ Well said.
Cost-wise, an email message is to a postcard as digital photos are to film.
Postcards and film have clear costs, which makes users intentional about their correspondence and their photography.
If we had to pay for each email message that we send and for each digital photo that we take, then we would be more intentional about our correspondence and our photography.
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I honestly had a thought recently that we are wasting so much time and data because data/SMS is no longer a significant cost. I wonder should it remain like that as it seems to have become a pitfall.
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This is interesting. I recall my vacation memories (is that proper English ?) by browsing my pictures indeed. As if I was recreating a fiction out of them. On the other hand, what would I remember without them ?
Due to my long-standing focus issues (mainly due to screens, I have no doubt about this), i have to make extra efforts to remember and am therefore more dependant on those.
I am happy I never used any AI stuff and didn’t grow with a dependency on those. I am rather a “paper dictionary” or Wikipedia guy.
Edit : I am glad we can talk openly on this forum about those concerns. On another more general forum / social media we would constantly get people saying “this is a matter of self-control / don’t be extremist / etc.”
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This is one of my favorite things on the Mudita Forum. I love hearing from community members about their experience with technology & how its impacted them.
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