Famously, attributed to a dialogue between he and Plato^[1] around 370 BC, the great philosopher Socrates scorned the advancements in writing technology for the negative impacts it would have human memory.

Plato wrote it all down—and that’s the only reason we know of the conversation.

So who was right?

In 2026, I do more than write. I—like billions of my fellow humans—use screens and keyboards and all sorts of other clever technology tools to replace my own memory and in a very real way put a piece of myself into the technology ecosystem that makes up our world.

This practice, habit, and very useful toolkit not only reduces my personal dependence on my own memory, but allows me to sort, edit, shuffle, share, expand and perpetually store volumes of information I know I don’t have the capacity to manage without technology.

On the flip side, putting piece of myself into the cloud also opens me up to storage costs, hacking, surveillance, technology failures, and inescapable dependence.

Both Socrates and Plato had strong points. They always seemed to do. And who I am I to argue with the greats? But I think it’s worth commenting on the middle ground here, that no matter pros or cons, our relationship with technology changes ourselves and our societies: and that unlike words scribbled onto paper, the relationship with our technology is more bidirectional that ever. 

I’ll be asking questions about screens, our relationships to them, and trying to figure out who is watching who under the topic Screens & Watchers  as I continue writing on this blog. Stay tuned.