[verbify]

I'm not sure it's social media as much as just mobile phones. I used to memorize phone numbers, addresses, directions, short notes, etc.

Memory works like a muscle - use it or lose it.

[Brajeshwar]

Quite a while back (I think 10+ years), I began to realize that I was too dependent on Phones for even the basic info. So, I’ve gotten back to writing a lot more and use Notebook + pen. It helps. I still use Phones but I like the idea of being able to know numbers, and details without pulling out the phone for everything.

Using the dialpad instead of the Saved/Favorite Name in the phones is an interesting habit I built up even for most used numbers such as my wife, sister, and even the neighbors. I remember quite a few numbers; even if I cannot say it, I can look at a keypad and the muscle memory kicks in.

This is the same for some key Passwords, I quite often just type them out. Again, I might not remember but my fingers just glides through the keyboard. I remember it being handy at a hospital making some large payment saving my brother’s family from malaria in a Hospital in Bombay.

Btw, it is also fun to no look at Map on the phone for most journey that I already have an idea or traveling for the 2nd time and henceforth.

[apparent]

I recently participated in a research study, and at one point, the researcher told me I was going to be given 3 minutes with a list of 20 words. I was to memorize as many of the words as possible. I would then be asked to perform a specific task, and then repeat back as many of the words as I could.

When I was given these instructions, I realized it's been many years since I had to memorize anything of meaningful length. I spent the first 20 seconds trying to remember as much as I could about how to memorize things, and the rest of the time actually memorizing. It truly is a muscle, and I was very out of practice.

[Gigachad]

Zoomers these days have to memorize hundreds of reaction wojaks so they can bring up the correct one immediately in an argument.

[agumonkey]

Not only we don't use it, but it seems that everything we see is of no value at all, streams of meaningless events

[Noaidi]

This is more important than you know.

Since "A variety of memory systems are regulated by dopamine in the brain." [1], being force feed stimulation after stimulation will affect memory due to the diminishing release of dopamine of less stimulating events.

Being from the first year of Gen X I lived both of these lives. I remember reading newspapers on the subway going to work in Manhattan, having to focus to scan the small stock market print. Yes the news was stimulating, but comparatively slow and limited. I could never read the news at work, but in my later years, working in tech, it was a constant thing throughout the day.

Dopamine if the fuel of capitalism, even illegal capitalism, like the drug trade. This is not dismissive of capitalism, it is just a truth. The only thing that changed is that humanity has found a newer, stronger way to milk dopamine out of the human brain.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/edited-volume/...

[harvey9]

Maybe we're memorising different things. On this site it will be remembering where different settings are found in different software tools, or the map of languages to libraries to functions.

[cenamus]

Gwern's writing on working memory might also interest you

https://gwern.net/dnb-faq

[JumpCrisscross]

I’m in my thirties. I have to mail books around the world and country because so few of my friends read. (It’s worst in the 50+ cohort.)

[chadcmulligan]

I've taken to audio books over reading, not sure how this will affect me but I do enjoy them.

[politelemon]

Likely both, the phone acts as an easy access point to social media, making the two a mentally lethal cocktail.