Memex Commentary

The commentary I found was a blog post which owned by Clive Thompson, the author of Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better. This book is actually one of the three books that I chose last week, I didn’t end up choosing this book but now I am very interested in reading it.

I find this blog post very interesting because I also happened to have the same problem with the one Thompson has. The process of finding something online is not precisely recorded in a way that allows someone to look back or share the process. In Bush’s essay, the specific pathway by which someone went from one document to another is called the “trail,” and he thinks there is value in sharing the “trail.” Thompson argues that what we can do with this “trail” is “metacognition: Thinking about thinking, knowledge about the way we knowledge.” This is the part I find intriguing, because I have never thought of the process of finding something as a valuable thing. However, just like one says, the process is as important as the result, and this probably applies to online search as well. Many people commented on this blog post have suggested tools that does what Thompson is asking for or at least parts of it, I would definitely check them out and probably be using them. I wonder what will the capable of reviewing and sharing the process of online search changes my ways of researching, thinking and connecting.

http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2011/09/how_did_you_fin.php