Memex

Bush’s article published in 1945 entitled “As we may think” envisioned this device called the memex, where individuals would compressed and stores all of their books, records and communications at exceeding speed and flexibility. The Memex would be an enlarged supplement to one’s memory and Bush’s memex is almost the pretense to what we know as the World Wide Web and computer in today’s society. 

In a blog by Clive Thompson on the website Collusion Detection, he describes that the main importance of the Memex is the idea of inscribing connections between where you found information. What I found most interesting about the blog post is that Thompson details how useful it would be to have an everyday told which would help us peel back the mystery of what we daily search online, what we find, and our reactions to those findings. It provides this “trail” of information on the Internet where we can systematically look at our past findings of the internet, and maybe even compare our trials with each other. I would have to agree with Thompson’s idea that most people have an “appetite” for knowing where they came across information, and that people genuinely enjoy finding links between thinking and findings on the Internet. However, a supplement to implement these “trails” depicted by Bush are often found on many websites and online newspaper sources where readers can see related articles and topics for certain articles, and viewers can also go and see what recent links have been viewed. For example, look at the media source YouTube. It gives you topics on popular videos being watching right now, while also detailing videos on the same topic such as “TheEllenShow”. However, I think Thompson’s idea in his blog post would be useful to see in regard to searching scholarly articles for papers or comparing one’s internet history with their friends and family.            

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