Outsourcing Our Brains: So Busy Recording, We Forget to Live

11/06/2009

A good friend of mine called me in a snit earlier this week. She was going to a big-deal event on Capitol Hill for work—some Senate thing—and a colleague had casually asked her to take photos.

She was all whipped up. “I mean the nerve!” she fumed. “I’ve earned this. I had a dress altered. I don’t want to be stuck behind a damn camera. Not gonna do it. I want to snarf heavy hors d'oeuvres and get snockered. I want to schmooze!”

I tried talking her down, but it didn't work because I totally identified. Not on the schmoozing part. (I couldn't schmooze my way out of a wet paper bag.) I sympathized that logging the event would crimp her fun. Because that's exactly what happened to me at my twins' fourth birthday party last weekend.

It wasn't enough for me to be party planner and people herder; I also appointed myself photographer. So while everyone else was dancing with giant parrots, feeding bison, and stroking camels (the party was at a local petting zoo), I was scrambling around the "safari" wagon like I was after the money shot for National Geographic.

I kept it up the entire time.

Click. Click. Click. Distribute bottles and pellets for barnyard-feeding. Click click click. Order pizza. Click. Click. Click. Everyone on the pony rides. Click. Click. Click. All aboard the wagon. Click. Click. Click. Catch ostrich grabbing cup and chugging pellets. Click. Click. Click. Serve pizza. Click. Click. Click. Cake and candles. Click. Click. Drop dead from exhaustion.

Afterward, I realized I hadn't spent one free moment with either birthday boy. When I wasn't playing traffic cop, I was full-on recording.

In a way, I'd totally missed their freakin' birthday!

So now I'm wondering what else I've missed.  As a blogger, I am always writing, tweeting, Facebooking my observations. That means I'm not living in the current moment. I’m capturing the one that just passed.

And I'm not alone. Millions of other moms—and dads—are out there snapping, blogging, and video-logging their kids' milestones and antics. Now, as I blathered in a previous post, there's a positive side to all this. If you don't capture those first steps and words, it all gets buried in the mush of your poor, information-overloaded brain.

When you record it, you not only have a record to return to later, you also help cement your memory of it—as found by memory researchers. But there’s a price: Not only does your reality become more about the recording, but your reality may be altered by the recording.

Imagine if a bride had to videotape her own wedding. Walking down the aisle and cutting the cake would be more than a little awkward. And it would no longer be her day. It would be her guests' day. But I bet it's been done.

Just think of all the people Facebooking and tweeting their babies' births. I was one of thousands who followed Pregnant Jane (@HisBoysCanSwim) as she tweeted the birth of her son, Monkey, from the very first contraction to the big delivery. It was like my favorite show, "Birth Day," except on Twitter.

And our obsession with digital recording is only going to escalate as the technologies get smarter. As noted in a recent CNN article, Microsoft will soon be releasing a wearable digital camera, SenseCam, that auto-snaps your every action, 24/7. Think of the implications! Will we all become walking citizen journalists recording everything that we and others do? Swear, and it's on the record. Burp, and it's on the record. Everything you do and say can and will be used against you on the Web.

On the other hand, if you do want to record something, it'll be even easier. And we're all so addicted to documenting everything that I can't see us foregoing the recording equipment.

Consider my friend. She called me all gushing and aglow after her Capitol Hill event. But she had one complaint: "Nobody brought a camera," she wailed. "Not even one person. So now we've got no record of it at all."

But boy did she enjoy herself.

Comments

[Fiona]

See what you mean about recording everything taking away from living in the moment. But you can't blame it all on technology.

Haven't people been doing this from the beginning of time? That's why they painted pictures on cave walls and invented paper, writing, etc.

We've always gone overboard with recording everything. Technology's just making it worse.

[Peter Burkholder]

Our camera broke a few months back.

I know that a few years from now I'm going to miss having good photos of Jonah and Linus's birthday from 2009.

But I know I was much more in the moment than when I was having to run around snapping photos.

Can't Big Brother just record it all for us?

[gigi]

Cybermom, you have to learn to delegate tasks - to husbands, grandparents, other moms at the party etc., so it doesn't all fall on your shoulders. Maybe you're a bit of a control freak, like me - I do as much as possible myself because I don't trust anyone else to do it properly, on time, etc. But really, you have to let some things go a bit...

[perk]

I never enjoy my own parties. No matter whether they be parties for my kids, adult dinner parties, barbeques in my back yard, whatever. Worrying about the food being warm enough, tasty enough, or just enough, etc, gets me jittery enough without adding the burden of taking pictures. But when it's all over, I usually feel it's been worth the stress of hosting and it's their turn next time!!

[Cyberchondriac Mom]

Peter, Big Brother may be getting ready to record it all for us if we keep going in the direction of this new SenseCam that we just wear and it does all the work. Less work for us, but less privacy too, eh?

Gigi, I know I know. I am a control freak. (Aren't we all, just to varying degrees?) And yeah, delegation can be a beautiful thing. If, um, it's done how you want it. But when it works, OMG. My bosses just hired this wonderful woman to help me out at work. She does a fab job and is heaven sent.

[Cyberchondriac Mom]

Perk, I love a good party but also dread hosting them. It's like, you gather all your favorite people together and then you run around like a scalded cat and can't even talk to them.
What I really need is a wife.

[penny]

Bridget, as a writer/journalist I'm afraid you're doomed to live on the edge of experiencing and recording for the rest of your life. It's a well-known fact that writers and artists of all kinds draw from their own experiences in their work, so all that "recording" whether it's mental or digital is a part of your living and breathing, whether you like it or not!

[popmom]

SenseCam? You sent me scurrying over the keyboard to find out what it is. Scary, totally scary. They wear em round their necks and at least you can see it's a camera-looking thing coming toward you, but how long will it be before it's a locket-sized thing round the neck and you won't even know you're being videoed??

[Cyberchondriac Mom]

Popmom, ha, didn't mean to scare you, but well, just imagine. With SenseCam, you're going to have to really watch your mouth in work meetings eh?

Penny, yeah, I'm doomed to a life of recording. I know this. And in a masochistic way, I like it. Or I wouldn't be doing it.

[sng]

Bridget, that petting zoo sounds amazing - dancing parrots, camels and bison, safari wagon, pony rides, kids feeding critters... Do you mind telling us where and what zoo this was exactly?

[Cyberchondriacmom]

SNG, sure, it's the Reston Petting Zoo in Reston, Va. Just a few miles from Tyson's shopping center. It really is a cool facility, with an amazing array of animals--some of them very exotic--that kids can touch and feed. They give out bottles and pellets for all the kids, also have pony and wagon rides. And what amazes me is how clean it is, given all the, um, output that must come from all those animals. Highly recommend!

[fey]

Someone named their baby Monkey?? Have you noticed how crazy kids' names are getting? I mean, what's with Apple (Gwyneth Paltrow), Tallulah (Willis/Moore), Sunday (Nicole Kidman), Camera(Arthur Ashe), to name a few. I hope these kids get their own back on their whacked-out parents sometime!!

[Cyberchondriacmom]

Camera??? no no no no no. Tell me that's not true.
Well, who am I to talk. I've got T-Rex and Punk. Although those are just nicknames I'm using because husband doesn't want me using their real names on the blog. Which I understand.

[His Boys Can Swim]

LOL... We just read the comment from Fey. Ha ha, no, we did not name our little boy Monkey, of course. We call him Monkey on our blog. We can also assure you that our real names aren't Jane and Tarzan. :) We blogged about our pregnancy journey anonymously and continue to do so beyond pregnancy so we can share ALL of the wonderful details about pregnancy and parenthood. Even the details people wouldn't dare to share with friends or family, hence why we've kept our identities private. (mainly so friends and family wouldn't find out who we are.)

As far as Tweeting the birth of our son along with the hours leading up to the big moment and the hours that followed, we're SO HAPPY we did. It's amazing to go back and read the whole story. We only remember about 10% of that day. Everything happened so fast and there were so many emotions. And because we kept thousands of followers in the loop during pregnancy, we thought it was a good idea to virtually bring them into the delivery room via Twitter - and share all of the details on our blog.

Life happens faster than many of us can keep up with. I think it's more important than ever to document everything - from blogs to Twitter to digital cameras to video video that's happening in our lives.

Our little Monkey will be able to go back and read our blog 20 years from now and read about his own birth, play-by-play. That's something that wasn't possible when Jane and I were born. :)

[Cyberchondriacmom]

His Boys Can Swim -- thanks for the comment. OK, now I see why the wacky names. This way you can record everything unchecked, uncensored. And also protect Monkey's privacy.
Cool.
So have you gone back and read the tweets from the birth? You could even make a book of them.

[HisBoysCanswim]

Yes, we're big on keeping Monkey safe decided not to post pictures of him besides the picture of him we posted at the end of July. :) Although he will be in a magazine in December - can't say which one of course to keep our little Monkey's identity private.

Oh yes, Jane and I have read through the Tweets I wrote a couple of times. It's wild because it's so play-by-play it gives us a chance to relive those moments. :)

Tarzan

[Marcie]

love this article! it's so true, i'm trying to strike a happy medium.

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