Your partner is your long-term Google

[razz]

It is very comforting to discover that with the loss of my lifelong partner, I am not losing my memory so much as losing my Google in the human form. We each had our strong points and interests that helped us recollect and support each other and once that support is gone it takes some time to build up the knowledge base, sometimes one simply cannot.
This link from Slate reports that for years we have used our partners or workmates as human versions of the Google to remember and recollect.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/are_search_engines_and_the_internet_hurting_human_ memory.html?wpisrc=obnetwork

[lmerullo]

Wow, great article. So much of it rings true. Every paragraph had me going uh-huh...

With my husband, we often say that the two of us together equal one, but alone we are useless. Hubby remembers faces - me names and other details. He can walk through a supermarket and pinpoint someone he spoke to years ago by the way they look. I stand by and pick up clues from the conversation (all the while asking myself if I recognize this person, lol) and then put together the who / what / when / where...

I miss the ability to make a phone call that starts: "Put Dad on". For many things, i used him as my wiki or google source. He is gone now, sigh...

[jennipurrr]

Much of my job is done on the internet but sometimes I need to know things like various folk's family connections. My grandmother (in her mid 80s) has lived in this area since college and loves to gossip. Every once in a while we will be stuck on something and she can pull out things from the recesses of her brain. I tell everyone she is better than google! It is sad to think about how much knowledge is lost, especially when the last of a generation is gone.