The Blog as a Cognitive Prosthetic Device
February 24, 2008
Ron Baecker has a research project to find “powerful and flexible electronic cognitive aids… to help people, including individuals who are aging and who have cognitive impairments, carry out activities of daily living”. Writing about ideas in a blog serves as an ideal “cognitive prosthesis” for me, with advantages over other techniques that include the ease of soliciting feedback. While corporate blogs are largely communication and marketing vehicles, there are many personal blogs in which people reveal details of their lives – perhaps largely as an aid to memory or an indicator of progress or achievement.
Entry Filed under: Web 2.0, health. Tags: blog, prostetic device.
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Lisa Neal Gualtieri is Adjunct Clinical Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of eLearn Magazine. Contact Lisa: 
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Karl Kapp | February 26, 2008 at 10:23 am
Lisa,
I use my blog as a memory holder of sorts, if I see an interesting article, image or other posting, rather than trying to remember it, I’ll blog about it and then I’ll have it. Vannevar Bush, the one time Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in the US, created the term Memex to refer to “device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.” I trully feel that my blog is my Memex–my online memory.
Often, before a presentation, I will go back to my Memex (read blog) and find my latest thinking and findings on a topic and then use that subject for my presentation. It keeps my presentations fresh and keeps me up-to-date with all my “stuff” in one place.
As you say a great “cognitive prosthesis”
Karl