My reaction to the video is that am amazed by the people who can memorize hundreds of numbers by looking at them at a glance. From my previous understanding I would say that these kinds of people are talented to some extent. This is contrary to what Joshua Foer says in the video. The ability to memorize something depends on how we pay attention to the situation at hand and how we engage our minds to enable you create images of what you want to memorize and determining their meaning (Foer, 2012). I think it is true as I have heard from the video that memorizing existed from time immemorial where people invested in the whole process. People in the past found memorizing easier since they did not have gadgets that could help them carry out tasks that required that memory be involved. On the other hand people in the current world are lazy in memorizing things since they rely mostly on the current technological development where our memories have been made external to some extent.
One of the most interesting things in the movie to me is the fact that our memory defines our personality. This is because if someone has the desire to do something he or she can do it at the excellent level but if he or she is not willing the thing cannot be done well. This also applies to the need to memorize something, since if the person has the desire to do so he or she will pay full attention to it and hence engage the memory. Another interesting thing is the fact that what motivates remembering something is how the message is conveyed to the person. From the example given in the video where the name is associated with the meaning and hence easily remembered than when it is just a name.
I can use these strategies of memorizing in remembering names of people I meet for the first time whereby I will be engaging my mind to associate their names with the meaning and maybe the surrounding where I met them. I can also use the strategies to remember my shopping list so that I don’t need to write down the shopping list before going to the supermarket. This will mean that I will have to engage my mind in creating images of the shopping items and attaching meaning to every item.
The video reminds me a personal experience in school where if the teacher used examples of pictures to illustrate something that we were learning it was very easy to remember than those things that we were only taught using written notes. This is because we could associate the topic with the pictures and hence memorize them properly. I think I will apply the tips in future by making sure that whatever my children learn in school, I get them a model that they can associate with the topic, hence enhance learning and memorizing.
Reference
Joshua Foer, (2012), Feats of memory anyone can do. Retrieved on June 11, 2015 from http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do?
