The death of memory,
by Alfredo Behrens

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      I used to know exactly where I had read something. A phrase, an idea, a striking passage—my mind would pin it to a spot on a page, left or right, top or bottom. Retrieving it was a physical act, as much about location as language. Flipping through a book, I could almost feel where it was.

Scrolling has erased all that.

In the endless vertical flow of digital text, every section looks the same. There are no fixed landmarks—just a uniform stream of words, stripped of spatial identity. Of course, we have search tools now, offering instant recall at the tap of a key. But there’s a catch: search enhances confirmation bias. We no longer stumble upon knowledge; we hunt down only what aligns with what we already believe.

It wasn’t always this way. When I studied at Cambridge, the library’s books were arranged by height, not subject. To maximize shelf space, volumes of similar size were stacked together meaning a book on philosophy might sit beside a text on botany. Searching for one book meant discovering another, often on a topic I’d never have sought out. Hours vanished in accidental learning, guided by chance, not algorithm.

Scrolling eliminates these serendipitous encounters. We no longer wander in knowledge—we tunnel through it. The digital world gives us efficiency but takes away randomness, and with it, discovery. What do we lose when we no longer get lost?

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