Nowadays parents put too much pressure on their children to succeed. What is the reason for doing this? Is this a negative or positive development?

The extensive use of electronic devices has had, and continues to have, an effect on our daily lives similar to that of the mechanical press back in Gutemberg’s time: the ability to store information somewhere other than our brains.

This

, though arguably positive, has a downside that some people have pointed out: we don’t get, or at least we’re not forced to, exercise our memory as much as our Facebook deprived ancestor’s did. Some might argue that

this

is not an issue worth losing sleep over, after all, the human brain is not divided into watertight compartments which we can put our memories, and

thus

our imagination can easily influence our recollection of the past, to the point that said recollection is no longer entirely accurate.

For example

, a historian would much rather base his or her research on any physical record of a specific event than on the personal retelling of said event made by a witness .

However

, losing the ability to accurately describe events from the past is not what those who have voiced their concerns about the overuse of electronics to storing information are worried about the most. In actuality, the most misfortunes consequence of a potential worsening of human memory would be the loss of resources to build and maintain a strong self-identity. Of course, one is more likely to lose significant chunks of their memory by means of an accident or illness, and claiming that an excessive use of electronics will inevitably lead to a collective crisis of identity would be blowing things out of proportion. But, at the same time, one can’t help but wonder how

this

increasingly interconnected world will continue to sharpen our brains.