summary ofMoonwalking with EinsteinBook by Joshua Foer, BA

first KEY POINT

The importance of memory declined throughout history

Nowadays, we remember very little and find it difficult to commit things to memory, for example, how often do we forget important birthdays or where we left the car keys. Yet, we humans didn't always have the attention span of a chicken. Memory was once humanity's most important asset.Today, we write things down precisely, so we don’t have to hold them in our memories. But before the invention of writing and other technologies of visual representation, humans could count on nothing but their ability to memorize. In fact, the only way to preserve thoughts and ideas was to memorize them.But everything changed after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press circa 1440. It all went downhill from there; the need to commit things to memory no longer existed. It was now possible for almost everybody to have a stream of unending memories written down, fixated forever; they just needed to remember where they wrote the information or idea.

The inception of supercomputers, smartphones, and the internet has even worsened the situation. Memory has become even less important to the current generation than to those in the previous century. Having Google at our service, our need shifted from remembering to knowing how to find the right information.The good news is, just because our memory is bad now doesn’t mean we can’t improve it. All we have to do is learn how to use our memory capacity efficiently. In this summary, we'll examine some powerful techniques you can use to commit anything to memory.