I recently started a Facebook account. Welcome to the new millennium of social interaction. Within 24 hours I had multiple friend requests. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't recognize the names of many of the people who wanted to be my friend. In my interaction with Facebook friending, I first experienced a profound memory failure, followed by a wonderful hypermnesia effect.
When I recognized a high school friend's name on a friending request, I figured out what was going on. In starting my account, I provided information in many of the categories requested, including my high school and year of graduation. Facebook uses personal information to suggest possible friends. Thus many friend requests were coming from people I knew as a high school student several years ago (more years than I will acknowledge in this post).
Unfortunately, knowing that I went to high school with these people didn't help. I had a name for these friend requests but I was drawing a blank. A clear, complete memory failure - nothing came to mind. I looked at their basic photo, but to be honest, most of us look quite a bit different than we did back then (generally, we've all gotten substantially better looking since those gawky teenage years). I couldn't remember who these people were.
What to do? I followed my own advice about remembering names: I cheated (see my post: How to remember names). I pulled out my old high school yearbook and I looked up the names - wow, those were interesting hairstyles. When I saw the pictures, I discovered that suddenly I was remembering my high school friends. Facebook friend requests turned out to be another example of how hard it is to remember names but how easy it is to remember other aspects of people, such as pictures and characteristics (see my post on: The Baker-baker paradox). With my yearbook nearby, I've been happily accepting and making friend requests. My friends have been living very interesting lives.
Going through that old yearbook and reconnecting with friends has led to another interesting memory phenomenon: hypermnesia. In normal conditions, hypermnesia is the increased recall following repeated attempts at remembering, particularly as each recollection cues the retrieval of other related memories. Hypermnesia, the increase in memories, can be seen as the opposite of amnesia, the decrease or loss of memories. I have found it wonderful to move from what felt like amnesia for my high school years to my current state of hypermnesia for those years.
Each high school memory has brought to mind additional recollections - clear evidence of the recovery of memories following long periods of time with no recollection. Some friends have scanned and posted photos from long ago, before the digital age. Those photos have served nicely to cue additional memories. Of course, I don't remember everything from those years. One friend claimed that she recalled something that I did in high school but I'm pretty sure it wasn't me.
Because of hypermnesia, I wonder if Facebook should remain the province of the young. Reminiscence can be very healthy for older individuals. Wouldn't it be nice if grandchildren helped their grandparents open Facebook accounts, post old pictures, and reconnect with old friends and places via the internet? Facebook could become a valuable tool for mental health.
