Priority   /     59: Citing a Manhole Cover

Description

How would you rate your memory?  If you said better than average, try this: can you recall that story Max told during our last episode—about the mommy blogger who made a reader so mad that they reported the blogger to Child Protective Services?  If you find yourself nodding along, check your memory—that story got cut before you heard the episode!  You are in good company, though. Max did the same thing when he recounted it without checking his sources (as it turns out, the incident never happened).  The week on Priority, Caitie and Max explore memory, and its many failings. Our memories trick us, degrade, vanish, and sometimes spontaneously form from whole cloth. The only way out is a paradox: every strategy to improve our recall, from calendars to journals to photographs, involves not relying on memory itself.

Summary

How would you rate your memory? If you said better than average, try this: can you recall that story Max told during our last episode—about the mommy blogger who made a reader so mad that they reported the blogger to Child Protective Services? If you find yourself nodding along, check your memory—that story got cut before you heard the episode! You are in good company, though. Max did the same thing when he recounted it without checking his sources (as it turns out, the incident never happened). The week on Priority, Caitie and Max explore memory, and its many failings. Our memories trick us, degrade, vanish, and sometimes spontaneously form from whole cloth. The only way out is a paradox: every strategy to improve our recall, from calendars to journals to photographs, involves not relying on memory itself.