We Won’t Remember Much of What We Did in the Pandemic Free to Read⁠↗

After months of working from home, I now realise that there was something incomplete about this account. New experiences are indeed important for planting a rich crop of memories. But, by itself, that is not enough. A new physical space seems to be important if our brains are to pay attention.

But I doubt I am alone in finding that my memory of the lockdown months is rather thin. No matter how many new people or old friends you talk to on Zoom or Skype, they all start to smear together because the physical context is monotonous: the conversations take place while one sits in the same chair, in the same room, staring at the same computer screen.The psychologist Barbara Tversky, author of Mind in Motion, argues that our minds are built on a foundation of cognition about place, space and movement. That creeps into our language with phrases such as “built on a foundation” and “creeps into”. Our brains started by helping us process our surroundings and the threats and opportunities they presented. Abstract thinking is an adaptation of those basic spatial capacities.This may be why not all novelty is created alike. Our brains seem to record a new place with a particular vividness. There was nothing especially novel about ironing a shirt while listening to a podcast, and nothing especially intriguing about that Dallas hotel room. But it was a physical space in which I had never been before. That was enough to set my brain taking notes.

I’ve come to realise with renewed force the value of a pre-Covid habit: seeking out new places in which to read and to write, even something as simple as a new café or a new library. Fresher ideas and clearer memories come when one works somewhere different: in a new place, the mind is more alert.This may be why, when we ask people to recall pivotal moments in history such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or the 9/11 terror attacks in Manhattan, we ask “where were you when you heard?”