I used to have a habit of saving any English words that appear strange to me or I have never encountered in my life into my iphone dictionary. I did this for the sole purpose of increasing my vocabularies. There were about hundreds of thousands of English vocabularies I used to have in my iphone. I was telling myself I would do my very best to memorize all of the vocabularies I preserved in the near future once I have sufficient time. Unfortunately, things ended up becoming disappointing. My iphone got broken by an accidental falling. All the vocabularies disappeared and won’t come back again since I didn’t icloud them into my Itunes.
When I was reading Chapter 9 in Carr’s The Shallows, a word turned up catching my attention. It’s ‘enfeeble’. I instantly recalled my experience with my crushed iphone- I would have preserve this word if my iphone is right in my hand, so I could memorize it and apply it into my own writing.
I was so accustomed to using iphone electric dictionary to store vocabularies that once the device was absent, I cannot even survive. Like Carr says in chapter 9, ‘what once had to be stored in the head could instead be stored on the tables and scrolls…'(177). People are, especially me, like the great orator had predicted, am ‘not calling things to mind from within myself, but by means of external marks’. Personally, I have put way too much reliance on my iphone dictionary, so much and so severe that once the device got broken, all my memory and hope of memorizing vocabuaries diminished right away.
Ironically, I guess my crushed-Iphone event was trying to inform me that nothing,(including technology, such as iphone) can last forever! Even if we don’t have to memorize everything temporarily; Even if we can look anything up online through our devices, we cannot rely on them eternally. We as human race still need to strengthen my memorizations of brain rather than relying heavily on technology. Otherwise, our ability to memorize will ‘enfeeble’ entirely.