Read the following passage and mark the letters A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each question from 31 to 40.
Can you remember exactly what you were doing on this day two years ago? Probably not. But Aurelien Hayman can. Say any date to Aurelien – four, five, six years ago – and he can remember what he was wearing, what music he listened to, who he talked to, and if the sun was shining. Most of us can only remember about 11 events from each year of our lives, but Aurelien has a condition called hyperthymesia, which means he can remember almost everything. “It’s like the dates have pictures,” he says.
Unlike Aurelien, most of us don’t have a perfect memory. How do you remember what you did last year? Well, you probably look for the past in your pocket, on your phone. That’s where a lot of our memories are now – in photos, posts, and playlists. It’s all online.
Our smartphones also give us instant mobile access to all kinds of information 24/7. In the pre-digital past, things were different. People memorized numbers, names, addresses, times, dates, and directions because it wasn’t practical to carry around address books, maps, and diaries. Nowadays, there’s an app for everything. We are storing more and more information online, so we remember less and less. Think about it: when did you last memorize a telephone number? Do you know your own number?
[I] If most information that we need is now online in the cloud, why do we need to remember anything? [II] Some people say that this “Google Effect” is making us stupid. But maybe the internet is making us smarter. [III] Memorizing information takes time, and the need for such memory may be rooted in our ability to connect with our past. Maybe it’s more useful to learn how to find, compare, and use information. [IV]
Here’s a problem though – imagine you look up one sunny day and the cloud disappears. If a virus eats our data, do we lose the records, memories, and knowledge of a whole generation? Perhaps it’s time to remember a few phone numbers and buy a photo album, diary, and notebook, just in case...
(Adapted from Oxford Discover Futures by Ben Wetz and Jane Hudson)
