Don't let your kids get sucked into this. If they are already, rescue them. If your parents have been captured by Zuck and his minions, get them out. Go outside and look at a tree. Reality is fine as it is.
People need to realize that human memory != computer memory. It’s not even similar. Human intelligence is all about identification and differentiation. Intelligence comes from being able to work with raw data and seeing how it can apply to given circumstances, predicting outcomes and selecting correct actions.
Memorization is the lowest form of intelligence, although it does have uses. I think it would be very beneficial for standardized testing to move away from testing ones ability to remember dates and lists of things and more toward problem solving and ability for the student to come up with solutions to problems of the field being studied.
Exactly! Somewhere along the line we started being taught things like context clues and other study traps. No amount of technique can possibly replace proper vocabulary building. I spent a lot of time in the dictionary in my younger years but it’s paid off massively in my ability to study and assimilate new things.
The way to remember what you read is to make sure you understand all the words in the text, the way they apply in context.
It's the micro-misunderstandings that lead up to the macro-misunderstanding which manifests as "forgetting".
Other commenters also mention applying what's in the book. That is 100% true, when you're reading about how to do something. If you're reading a fact-based book (non-fiction) but not about doing something I usually take a break from the text and think about how it would apply to the subject I'm studying. But it's just obvious that you can't get a concept if you don't understand the words that describe it.
The target is conceptual understanding. It's got nothing to do with memorization. TO get the meaning of a song, for instance, it's not necessary to memorize the lyrics.
One real-world example, I was taking care of my father in the hospital and I noticed one of the techs telling him that he needs to order his dinner from the "dysphagia" menu. I asked her if he could have some other soft foods from home and she said, "all I know is that he needs to order from the menu." I asked her what dysphagia means, honestly I didn't know. She didn't know. I looked it up and told her it means "difficulty in swallowing". She realized that she never actually understood the concept of WHY one needs to order from the menu. As if the food is somehow magic. So that helped her understand the concept of the rule, and why it applies and I am sure she hasn't forgotten it.
I don't take notes, mark up pages or speed read or use any crutch, trick or technique to study. I just get the definitions of words that I don't understand and I do just fine.
I think one way to help give the people back some control over the information flow is to educate as many people as possible in the skill of data evaluation. There are definite "outpoints" and "pluspoints" in any piece of information portrayed, and when you give someone the power to differentiate and evaluate the relative importance of individual data points, the controllers of said data become much less powerful. I guess this could be also likened to "critical thinking"? There will always be huge megacorp "mass media" and we need to learn the skills necessary to immunize ourselves to the negative effects of it.