The pandemic has ruined my memory. Can my search history help?
I can't rely on the grey sponge in my head any more. But my digital footprint shows how I have been idling away my time
Our memories are shot: I know this, having read, and instantly forgotten, the science. It is the combination of isolation, anxiety and nothing happening, I think, undermining our episodic memory. Repeating myself, forgetting shopping and rereading a simple recipe 10 times, I fear my brain has been smoothed to idiocy by days that pass without contours or relief.
What do I remember from last year? A final trip to disaster-movie-eerie London, during which I was so freaked out that I left my handbag (remember those?) on a bench. A Mother's Day painting that made me cry. The unlikely delight of playing the piano with my son, but we have forgotten the easy piece we fumbled through in April.
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