What We Lose When Our Memories Exist in Our Phones

I did the exact opposite. I hung onto a bunch of paper TicketMaster stubs for decades because I was indecisive about throwing them away or hanging on to them. The "sentimental baggage" surrounding those tickets distorted my thinking and attached too much importance too them.

And then I read about de-cluttering your life advice from minimalists and learned of a good hack that worked for me: Just take photos of your mementos and then throw them away.

That was the psychological breakthrough I needed. I digitally scanned all my old Ticketmaster stubs as *.tif files and then threw them out. I also had a bunch of useless novelty coffee mugs (free gifts from trade shows or past employers). I just took digital photographs of each mug and then gave them away at Goodwill. Preserving them digitally helped me let go of the physical objects. Everyone once in a while, I might revisit my digital scans of the concert tickets on my computer monitor and that's good enough for me.

Reading passages like hers reminds me that that some people need those physical mementos and some don't. In a similar vein, a lot of people like physical media like DVDs and CDs. In contrast, I got rid of my entire physical library of thousands of discs. I don't miss the space they took up at all.

But when my old friends and I are together, we still laugh about stories we tell about Halo 2 and the gaming we did together back then. The same way we still tell stories about that weird kid in 2nd grade and the trips we went on.

Isn't that where the memories exist, and isn't that what that matters?

I think what matters is fulfillment. That is the axe which splits how you should and shouldn't spend your time.

That said, I sheepishly only read the AI blurb at the top.

There is so much context in your camera roll. So so much. Not all of it is understood yet, but it’s finally getting good.

> The physical archives we amass in drawers or old shoe boxes aren’t free from the threat of bad memories or meaninglessness

But they are oh so incomplete. You can dig through your shoebox of ticket stubs once an every few years at most - anymore and they stop losing that charm.

> But mostly our phones are full of stuff that doesn’t matter

They are also full of stuff you didn’t know would matter at the time but now does. One off moments of how you kid used to carry his stuffed animal in his mouth when he crawled. Architecture details of an old house you had forgotten. A photo of you an a close friend meeting the first time. These often spark sharing, then real connection with others in your life.

Sure - put your ticket stubs in a shoebox. But you aren’t losing anything by having your memories in your phone. You have the potential to gain so much.

> Thamus was a mythical Pharaoh of Upper Egypt, and appears in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus. According to the story told by Socrates in that dialogue, King Thamus received from the god Thoth the knowledge of writing, but decided not to use it too often, as he reckoned this will damage the ability to remember extensively.

There is no doubt "technology" changes us and the way we effectively are. But it's always been like this, and the people lamenting on it are doing it because that's how it was when they came into the world. People born now are coming into a different world, and they will not miss anything. So it goes.

They don't need to keep the eyeballs reading for as long as possible any more?

It might be interesting to watch the jokes, interactions, and people you don’t see every day. Current implementation is a google device changing photos every minute.