In 1945, Vannevar Bush described a computer system that is similar to the modern internet in an essay that was published in the Atlantic titled “As We May Think.” The invention he made was called “the memex.” Bush imagined the memex as a device that would function as a supplement to our own memory. People could use it to store all kinds of text, images, and communications, and it would allow people to summon them at will. In modern days, although the internet evolved as Bush did not anticipate, his vision found recognition on the web we use today, especially in the search engines field, which allow us to retrieve information quickly and easily.
The similarities between Google and the memex were: “Google initially began as a tool for rating annotations, according to Larry Page”, they were trying to build a system that after people viewed a page they could click and see what smart comments other people had about it. Bush designed a hypothetical document-manipulation system that can manage the annotated links he established between documents.
In nowadays, some of the points that Bush introduced in the past can still be relative to these social media platforms such as Instagram. We don’t have to worry about encoding in our memories because all the information we are recording about our lives now exists on the social networking platform, which is like a proxy for human memory. The idea of the search engine can also relate to Bush’s point. All we need to do is to type in to the search bar in the social networking platform, the memories in that particular time will show up in the database.
I agree with Instagram is how we store memories like Bush expected “It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.” But would say those “memories” are highly curated rather than recording actual information.