Internet Memory

So I finished reading The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, a novel by Umberto Eco. It focuses on, to give you a synopsis, a man who, after suffering a stroke, remembers nothing of his personal history, but perfectly remembers quotations from literature and poetry and encyclopedias. Through reading childhood books, comic books, school notebooks, listening to period recordings and the such, he pieces together something he calls a "paper memory," not actually his full memory, but an outline more or less. And I'll stop there. If you really care to learn how it ends, I can loan you the book. It's very good, as are Eco's other books, which I suppose I am making a recommendation for now.

Aside from that, I think I am beginning to develop something of an internet memory, especially since Google and Wikipedia have come around. I suppose that this site also serves as a piece of this pseudo-memory, allowing me to recall things I'd rather not keep in my head, whether for sake of sanity or clarity is a matter for debate. I realize that nothing on the internet is going to supplement my own personal memory, that memory of the things that I have experienced, but more so it replaces general knowledge I have accumulated over the years. I don't mean an ingrained knowledge like how to tie your shoes or how to ride a bike. At this point, that really has become more muscle memory, as I've not ridden a bike in about 6 years now, but I am confident that I still could. But rather I refer to things I've learned in school, and either never cared to commit to memory or have simply forgotten in the flood of knowledge that has come on since.

I am sure that if it really came down to it, I could write a thoroughly accurate personal history from memory, although it might require some editing and revision, not censoring mind you, in order to properly place dates and the such. Am I as confident that, provided with a syllabus for my educational history, I could write a similar history or take a test, on the spot, on these subjects? Slightly less. I begin to wonder if this is more so due to my reasonable lack of effort through about sophomore year in high school than it is to a trick of the brain.

Another though occurs: if Wikipedia kept a personal search history, as I'm sure Google does, what would mine look like? If they kept dates and subjects and that sort of thing. How often do I go back to the well on a particular topic?