By Janice Lane Palko

I’m a bit weird. I’ve been keeping a diary since I was 11, and for the last few decades, at the beginning of new year, I like to sum up the departing one. As I was going through what I wrote in 2024, something grabbed my attention. There were quite a few movies that I watched this year that I couldn’t recall much about until I looked up the titles on the internet to refresh my memory. I have a pretty good memory, but I thought well maybe I need to look into those brain-boosting supplements you see advertised on television.
Then I noticed something else. The movies that I saw in a theater last year, I remembered quite easily and recalled much about them; however, there was only one I watched on television that I easily recalled, and it was a movie called The Road Dance. I had liked it so much, that I recommended it to my family. Realizing that my memory was being selectively forgetful allayed my fear of memory loss, but I wondered what was going on. Why could I recall movies I saw in a theater but hardly any that I’d watched on my TV? What was the difference?
Three words: my smart phone.
When I was in the theater, I was forced to stow my phone, but I don’t know if you do this, but when I’m at home, the movie has to be extraordinarily engrossing for it to capture my undivided attention, or I start scrolling social media sites or begin googling the movie that I’m watching. One of the forgettable movies I watched was Days of Heaven, which was actually quite good when I looked it up and refreshed my memory. It debuted in 1978, and I had never seen it. It starred Richard Gere and Sam Shepard. Well, of course, that sent me on a search wondering how old Richard Gere is now? (He’s 75.) A Philadelphian, I had to check where he attended school and was amazed that he attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship. Who knew? Then I had to check on his former wife, Cindy Crawford. Then I wondered what the reception was for this film and checked that out. No wonder I didn’t remember this film very readily.
Back when I was working at Westinghouse in the ‘80s, the concept of “multi-tasking” became popular, which advocated making the most of your time by doing several things at once. This is in direct contrast to the concept of “mindfulness” or being in the present moment. In researching the concept of multi-tasking, I ran across numerous studies that debunked the benefits of multitasking, saying that “multitasking of any kind reduces the productivity and/or increases rate of errors. Experts estimated in 2008 that $650 billion a year was wasted by U.S. businesses because of multi-tasking.”
Clearly multi-tasking while watching movies impairs your ability to recall what you’ve watched, but on the other hand, I now know that Cindy Crawford’s middle name is Ann and her measurements were 34-25.5-36. I don’t know if that’s a fair tradeoff; I may stick to trying to be in the present moment.
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