Can You Trust Your Childhood Memories?

Anything you remember before the age of 2 probably never happened. That's just one among many interesting insights about how our memories work in an article all about how we can't trust our earliest childhood memories.

I've been thinking a lot about memory recently because I'm currently reading a book about the science of memory (and how to improve it) called Moonwalking With Einstein. The premise of the book is that anyone can learn certain habits to improve their memory.

The fact is, technology offers a shortcut that is already reducing the need to remember anything. At the same time, social media can provide a perfect memory of the reality of moments in our life we might prefer to forget or at least remember differently. In the past, memory was how we recalled and preserved our history. Today it is a task we increasingly outsource to our devices.

So the real question is, what happens to memory in a world where it is increasingly treated as unnecessary?