Originally posted by ahn1991:I think all of this comes as a byproduct of the mass availability of data in our current society. Because information can be so easily accessed, there is a huge de-emphasis on a person's ability to remember things. Companies and schools are saying that memorizing facts is not as important as being able to navigate the resources to find what you need. In business and academics, this is fine. However, this principle has invaded every aspect of life, even pleasure. Before everything could be easily recorded, information was passed on through oral tradition, by talking about it. This required the ability to accurately remember and recall an event from your own mind. If you think about it, this can only be done by truly experiencing an event. The events you remember best are those you actually took part it. This is coming in conflict with an age where oral tradition has lost its worth. People are looking for concrete proof that an event actually occurred. They want to see a picture or video to prove that you were actually at an event.
Now we live in a society where people spend more energy memorializing an experience than actually experiencing an experience. That's because they feel that without some sort of concrete proof, their experience cannot be validated by others. But attempts to validate an experience to others comes at the cost of experiencing it for yourself. So now the only memories you had of that concert was how you couldn't decide what filter to use for that picture of Bono.
Beautiful and true story.
