Mental Fragmentation
Definition
Mental fragmentation is a phrase used to describe the mental state of someone who has memories written into their brain from multiple sources over time, especially those who are heavy multitaskers. When multitasking, the brain does not store related memories in one place, but in small pieces. This causes performance and recall to suffer. One can easily see this when installing software while leaving other programs running, or downloading a bunch of images and storing them in different places all over the hard drive. The computer’s memory gets fragmented, much like a brain becomes fragmented. Mental hygiene becomes difficult, but important, in environments like these. Simultaneous time also causes social punctuation, as technosocial connectivity seeps into every part of social relations. In addition, memories written to the brain during these data binges are generally forgotten during REM sleep and not written to permanent or embodied memory. Conversely, one who spends physical time in the practice of study or experience of a subject will be more likely to write it into physical memory.
