My wife’s iPhone put together one of its Over the Years slideshows for my birthday, and she sent it to me because—exactly as the designers hoped—it contains several good memories. I have two wonderings about this.
First, the goodness in good memories. We periodically talk about the lowest-cost, best-return psychological intervention of gratitude, which seems heavily wrapped up with the idea of deliberately reviewing good memories. I know nothing about the algorithm that is used to put together these slideshows, but it seems to me it mostly triggers on various holidays and other calendar events. I wonder if there is a way to optimize this in the direction of maximizing gratitude, perhaps as a user-controlled feature. I wonder what maximizing gratitude actually looks like, in the sense of provoking the feeling as often as possible. Is there anything like an emotional-trigger spaced repetition system, and is there any kind of emotional-experience curve distinct from the forgetting curve?
Second, speaking of the spaced repetition system, is the memory in good memories. I have traditionally been almost totally indifferent to pictures and actively hostile to the taking of them; I have seen a lot of experiences skipped or ruined outright by the insistence on recording them for the memories. I still enjoy these sorts of slideshows when they come up, which amounts to me free riding on the labor of chronicling our lives. Sometimes they capture moments I have forgotten, which suggests there is some value in deliberately reviewing one’s life.
A stark case is Alzheimers. The classic horror is the forgetting of loved ones; if we took something like the Over the Years slideshows and put them on an SRS schedule, would people suffering from Alzheimers be able to remember their loved ones for longer? Can we even model Alzheimers as something like a faster forgetting curve?
Expanding the idea beyond treatment into a tool, what about for networking either professionally or socially? There already seems to be an abundant supply of photos and videos with brief acquaintances. Would anyone be interested in hijacking the slideshows for deliberately remembering the names of people they met at a party or professional convention?
A skilled hacker could install themselves in your memories. Add their face to your photos, first as one of many people in the background, then gradually more and more, until you would start believing they were the best friend in your childhood. Each time you review your memories, you create fake memories of your “friend”.
Also, consider the possibilities this would offer for advertising. I bet you didn’t notice that each of your best memories involves you holding a bottle of Coke. But the more you review the photos, the more obvious it becomes.
This should also be transformed into a horror movie in the direction of Ring and Insidious, where each time we view the photos the malevolent spirit gets more integrated into our lives and when it shows up in a best friends forever photo alone with us it gets to assume our lives.
My wife’s iPhone put together one of its Over the Years slideshows for my birthday, and she sent it to me because—exactly as the designers hoped—it contains several good memories. I have two wonderings about this.
First, the goodness in good memories. We periodically talk about the lowest-cost, best-return psychological intervention of gratitude, which seems heavily wrapped up with the idea of deliberately reviewing good memories. I know nothing about the algorithm that is used to put together these slideshows, but it seems to me it mostly triggers on various holidays and other calendar events. I wonder if there is a way to optimize this in the direction of maximizing gratitude, perhaps as a user-controlled feature. I wonder what maximizing gratitude actually looks like, in the sense of provoking the feeling as often as possible. Is there anything like an emotional-trigger spaced repetition system, and is there any kind of emotional-experience curve distinct from the forgetting curve?
Second, speaking of the spaced repetition system, is the memory in good memories. I have traditionally been almost totally indifferent to pictures and actively hostile to the taking of them; I have seen a lot of experiences skipped or ruined outright by the insistence on recording them for the memories. I still enjoy these sorts of slideshows when they come up, which amounts to me free riding on the labor of chronicling our lives. Sometimes they capture moments I have forgotten, which suggests there is some value in deliberately reviewing one’s life.
A stark case is Alzheimers. The classic horror is the forgetting of loved ones; if we took something like the Over the Years slideshows and put them on an SRS schedule, would people suffering from Alzheimers be able to remember their loved ones for longer? Can we even model Alzheimers as something like a faster forgetting curve?
Expanding the idea beyond treatment into a tool, what about for networking either professionally or socially? There already seems to be an abundant supply of photos and videos with brief acquaintances. Would anyone be interested in hijacking the slideshows for deliberately remembering the names of people they met at a party or professional convention?
A skilled hacker could install themselves in your memories. Add their face to your photos, first as one of many people in the background, then gradually more and more, until you would start believing they were the best friend in your childhood. Each time you review your memories, you create fake memories of your “friend”.
Also, consider the possibilities this would offer for advertising. I bet you didn’t notice that each of your best memories involves you holding a bottle of Coke. But the more you review the photos, the more obvious it becomes.
My reaction is “Ha!” and/or “Ew.”
This should also be transformed into a horror movie in the direction of Ring and Insidious, where each time we view the photos the malevolent spirit gets more integrated into our lives and when it shows up in a best friends forever photo alone with us it gets to assume our lives.
And enjoy a refreshing Coca-Cola, of course.