
Why bother to remember when you can just use Google? - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/07/study-why-bother-to-remember-when-you-can-just-use-google.ars
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raganwald
Chris Crawford, the author of the brilliant (for its time) game "Balance of
Power," wrote a book about the game and his design process. In it, he pointed
out that the simple facts encodedc in the game--such as the GDP of Ghana or
the number of troops in Mali--were unimportant, but the _relationship_ between
the facts, the cause and effect between actions countries take and the facts,
those were the important things to understand.

Thsi comes up all the time when discussion programmer intervies. No, there is
no point in asking if somone has memorized something they can find in Google.
But their is a point in asking questions to elicit their understanding of the
relationships, correlations, causes, and effects between the facts. Being able
to Google the answer to a relationship is not the same thing as understanding
a relationship directly.

~~~
onemoreact
The problem with "known" facts is they often extreamly context specific. There
are actually a wide range of interview questions where I would much rather
have someone say "I don't know" than say a correct answer without aproprate
qualifications. Because even something as basic as how large is an int is can
quickly lead to a bug when someone assumes the usual rules still apply.

~~~
natesm
> Because even something as basic as how large is an int is can quickly lead
> to a bug when someone assumes the usual rules still apply.

Would someone actually ask this and expect a numerical response? The only
correct answer is sizeof(int), right?

~~~
dionidium
The sizes of primitives in C are implementation defined, but the sizes of
primitives in some other languages (e.g. Java) are defined by the
specification.

~~~
natesm
That's true, I was purely thinking in C there.

~~~
JoshTriplett
In C, it still applies when you use the stdint.h sized types, such as uint32_t
and uint64_t.

------
convulsive
"The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learner’s
souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the
external written characters and not remember of themselves. You give your
disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be heroes of
many things, and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient
and will generally know nothing." -- Socrates, in Plato's "Phaedrus"

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praptak
It seems that they tested the remembering on data that is uninteresting or/and
useless to the subjects. It makes perfect sense not to remember such
information and even more so when one knows it's googleable.

On the other hand (insert anecdata disclaimer here) I have found out that
Google does not prevent me from remembering things like git options or obscure
facts I had to dig up as ammunition in flamewars I participated in.

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skarayan
We remember what matters to us. For example, ideas, concepts, and feelings
matter because we shape everything around these things. But, how much do facts
matter in comparison? To remember facts, we have to memorize the information
itself rather than the metadata (information about information).

It is all about leverage, we can leverage more information by storing this
metadata in memory. Additionally, metadata is a lot smaller in information
content than the information itself. (it takes up less space in our minds)

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namank
Because then you are an expert in information retrieval, not the subject
matter. You have no intuitive grasp of the material. You have no way of
building on top of the material. No way of innovating, no way of growing.

~~~
bluekeybox
On the other hand, expertise in information retrieval is a very valuable skill
that allows one to penetrate (if not cover) spheres of knowledge previously
considered the domain of experts or connoisseurs.

I remember my introductory writing class in college where the professor
emphasized how important it is for students to know how to use external
sources, libraries, indexes, catalogues, etc. It's funny that nobody would
ever question whether using libraries would negatively impact our brain. Why
then, in 2011, people still ask this question about Google? Answer:
gerontocracy is afraid of being replaced by a younger, smarter generation.

Of course diversity of sources is important, but then any smart search engine
user has figure that out already.

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charlemagne
I find this emphasis on simple information storage and retrieval way to
prevalent in our schools. Courses entirely based on reading and regurgitating
facts made up a sizable amount of my education, including college. After a
while it becomes hard to care, since the random facts are worthless to
remember, sometimes even when going on to the next level course.

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diogenescynic
Transactional memory. Why bother memorizing something if you know how to
access that information anytime when needed? I seem to recall Sherlock Holmes
saying something about how he tried to forget everything that was unnecessary,
so as to preserve his mental capacity for other things (ex. how when Homer
learns something new he forgets something old).

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sc68cal
It is far more important to have critical thinking, than good memory. Memory
can be incorrect or incomplete and without critical thinking, can go
unchallenged or unimproved.

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zwieback
The article and the comments here make some good points but my question is
whether rote memorization of facts is beneficial in other ways, e.g. it may
strengthen critical thinking unrelated to the memorized facts. It's intuitive
to think that remembering a list of countries, their GDPs and mortality rates
would help you understand the correlation functions between those variables
but it may also help your brain to form similar but not identical groupings
and associations.

I seem to remember reading that some educators are reemphasizing rote
memorization because they found other beneficial side effects. Unfortunately,
I didn't memorize it enough to make my point here, hmmm, time to Google...

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hluska
I'm not so worried about the present - I am 34 years old and expect the web to
be around for the rest of my career. Consequently, if I can't recall facts
today, who cares? From a professional point of view, I'm worth much more if I
can think critically about facts than if I can remember them.

However, I am very worried about the future. If we don't practice information
retrieval, our ability to retrieve information should theoretically dim. When
I am in my 60s/70s, am I going to be at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease
(or Alzheimer's -esque symptoms)?

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tobylane
How do you know what/how to ask? I'm learning all the time, wide range, and I
often have to learn more, or ask people who know more, just to know enough to
ask Google. What good is Google if it can't help with the furthest reaches of
your knowledge, if you can't form questions in a way it (or any other search
engine) can answer?

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ankneo
But you still need to remember the text you wanna search for :P

~~~
edwardy20
Not always. Sometimes Google has the 'Did you mean: x', so you don't even have
to do that.

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JeffffreyF
Then the kids are right, textbooks are just for losers. Losers of memory,
which in the real world gets so many the "loser" tag.

~~~
giberson
An interesting experiment I'd like to see would be a cataloging effect of
transactional memory. For instance, if our brains are adapting to the fact
that we can look up information, could we possibly be improving the breadth of
knowledge we are aware of.

As an example, say we have X objects. Of X objects, there are Y properties.
There are also N folders. We have two classes of subjects participating in the
experiment. Subject class A is tasked with memorizing the Y properties of X
objects. Subject class B is tasked with memorizing which folder of N the Y
properties of X object is located.

If for example, X = 100 and Y = 5 then N = 100. An example result for A
subjects might be an average of 5 objects where each of the 5 properties were
memorized correctly. [That's 5 properties x 5 objects = 25 memory units]. The
question I have, is if B subjects would remember an average of 25 objects
stored in which folders correctly, or might they remember less/more correctly?
If the Y properties vary in type (from color, to weight, to appearance, etc)
do they require more memory power than a consistent X is in N folder
memorization?

If it turns out you can memorize more about where information can be found,
than you can about the actual information then it would seem that [for so long
as the information can be looked up] it is more practical to catalog that
information exists and where it can be found, than to engage in memorizing the
information itself.

Then the idea of "being a jack of trades, master of none" has a slightly
different caveat. In that one could be more-so a jack of all trades than one
could master a single trade. Ie, the sum of knowledge held by the jack is
greater than that held by the master.

~~~
JeffffreyF
Yes, the abstract thinker does hold onto more actual knowledge then the
concrete detail thinker. Breadth really does outway depth in terms of true
thought, but in the mechanized specialty world of now limiting the brain to be
concerned with only a certain set of repeatable, hard to perfect or
continually repeat procedures is what is rewarded for most people. We don't
pay you to think, ya know ;)

