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I've found that in my own experience that depressed people focus on and recall negative details moreso than the good.

This form of selective memory, remember the good things and forgetting the bad, is a primary tool that ordinary people use to stay sane. Something that records everything you do forever has the potential to serious mess with that.

Wikipedia calls it the negative triad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_errors#Depression




That's interesting!

But at first blush I'm not seeing how it would matter. If I recall rightly, what you remember is partly a function of what you think about. If you're thinking about negative experiences, then you'll retain them. If you think about the positive ones, you'll retain that.

People already have a lot of digital archiving going on in the form of photos, emails, Twitter, Facebook, and the like. Mostly, people just ignore that vast historical trove. I would expect adding more detailed recording not to change the balance much; if people use their archives at all, it will be to seek out the things that they already are inclined to remember.




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