Where did my short term memory go?

My short term memory is shot, and it’s got nothing to do with the RAM, ROM or bios. My real short term memory is destroyed by technology, I can’t recall anything of importance which is due or has happened within 2 weeks either side of today. Today is found on a calendar connected to my emails, instant messenger and my Ipod.

For god’s sake when did my life’s schedule fit into such a small space but at the same time become so connected to my music and social chats about drinks on Thursday night?

I’m one of us conventionally wowed by new technology but one of the last to run out and buy it. Not because I fear it or am necessarily a Luddite but I like technology that is obvious and has a specific use, not so much the gizmo’s that connect and converge with stuff I already have. After all I really don’t need my calendar when I’m out running around with my Ipod in my ears. But I suppose I can appreciate the new things that bring these cumbersome units into one and enable me to carry one brick instead of 3. It will just take me longer than most to have one.

But the reason I don’t rush out and snap them up is I don’t want to have to go through the effort of setting up and synching all these pieces and then knowing which one I can then be rid of. It’s the last part that worries me the most, what happens if I haven’t synced it all up correctly and I lose that doctors appointment I missed 3 years ago? Or more importantly miss someone’s birthday because let’s face it, I’m crap with dates.

I digress... What really concerns me is my degraded short term memory. And although the short term memory sits between sensory and long term memory and therefore meant to degrade or at least “clear out” periodically to allow more stuff in, it’s the fact that I’m cramming all my short term stuff into electronics in some strange hope that it will guide me day to day. And to some extent this it works. But at what cost? What happens when over the long term, my short term memory extends to only knowing how to use my electronic brick or only where I left it 30 minutes ago.

If technology doesn’t make these things intuitive and easy to use for people with no short term memory how will I remember how to use it once I have found it again? But as most of us know already if you don’t know how to use it, hand it to a 5 years old and it’s programmed within seconds.
So maybe all I need is a 5 year old and they can manage my schedule?

So in time my capability to remember anything will only include smells from 1978, when I was 3 and the words to Neil Diamond’s entire collection but no recollection of what I did at 2pm yesterday or where I should be at 3:15pm today. That will be in my brick which will be the size of a pea and implanted in my neck.

I just hope the 5 year old doesn’t need feeding and I need to remember when to do it.