Emotions & External Memory

Dear Supporters, Weare in the process of finalizing our first survey study. We want to make surethat the survey would give us enough leads to continue this line of research. Throughour discussions we have narrowed down some of the elements we consider to becritical for our study:

• Are people cognizant of their internal memory capacity(limitations)?
• Do people realize their need to incorporate externalmemory aids in their life?
• When and how do people use external memory aids?
• What is the emotional impact of loss of externalstorage of data?
  • Are people awareof the extent of loss?
  • How good/bad arepeople at data backups?
  • Is there arelationship between backup practices and impact of loss?
  • What are peoples’predicted reactions to loss vs. actual reactions?

Thislast topic “emotional impact of loss of external memories” is something we havebeen pondering upon recently. We have opposite views on how loss of data mightaffect a person. While Jason is convinced that loss of data should bedevastating, Farah believes the impact of loss would depend on how aware aperson is about the content lost in the event. We received a good lead on thispoint from Clive Thompson (http://smarterthanyouthink.net/),who pointed us to the excellent work of Cathy Marshall (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/cathymar/ and http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/~marshall/).  She hasinterviewed people who lost data from storage failures and found that they can displaya surprisingly accepting, even relieved, attitude.

            This suggestion is intriguing puzzlingto both of us. We both agree that at least some data is critical to all of us.It is possible that we collect a lot of junk over time. But should loss of 90%junk and 10% critical data lead to relief?

            So right now we are considering whetherwe have a good tool to probe this question of emotional impact of data loss.  One of the questionnaires we are looking intois the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). It was developed by listingabout 40 life events and asking people to estimate the magnitudes of lifechange caused by those events (Miller & Rahe, 1997). We are consideringdeveloping an expansion on this that would include updated events for theinformation age.

That’sall for now folks! We will keep you updated on our progress. Please do feelfree to comment and send suggestions. All your comments and suggestions wouldbe highly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Farah & Jason