{"id":250,"date":"2025-10-04T20:35:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T03:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/?p=250"},"modified":"2025-10-04T20:35:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T03:35:49","slug":"evoking-control-memory-and-self-while-planning-my-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/archives\/250","title":{"rendered":"Evoking control, memory and self while planning my studies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Quick warning: this essay mentioned eating disorders. If this is something you\u2019re not comfortable with, feel free to skip this post. Stay safe.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Ironically, my evocative object was heavily used to create this. And many other things, because I organize my whole academic life with my notion. Not to be that person, but I love it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a course isn\u2019t on Canvas before the term begins, I can get frustrated: it means I can\u2019t prepare for school in advance by adding all the deadlines into my notion, writing out grade components into each classes\u2019 page, can\u2019t break each assignment down and plan my workload before the first class. For MDIA 300, I wrote out not only the major and minor assignments and what each entails, but also what page of syllabus it is on, and I am very grateful to my past self for that. Notion helps me know what to do on any given day, if I\u2019m lucky to find a good spot in either of the libraries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is not, however, to say that my notion has any power over me: I am free to ignore my own study plans if I feel so inclined. Notion simply evokes the feeling of control over my student life, gives me structure and simplifies the search for much needed information.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Affordances <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my personal case, the digital aspect of it has affordances that physical notebooks lack: mainly, accessibility, larger creative control and digital media opportunities (try putting in a hyper-link or a gif into a physical notebook). I also prefer typing out my notes and editing later over writing them down with a pen with no space for mistake. Being able to easily share my notes and copy and paste in-class assignments is also a huge boost for digital over physical copies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, I\u2019m aware that a large company holds control over my app for studying, and has the power to take it away. Which it did, actually: Notion is no longer available in Russia, so I was unable to see my notes or add my new subjects into my calendar when I was home.\u00a0Which, obviously, is not that big of a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital brain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evocative objects are \u201cthings we think with\u201d, according to Turkle, and that is exactly the function my Notion fills in. In her chapter about a long-lost datebook, Michelle Hlubinka describes her evocative object as \u201can external information organ\u2014a piece of my brain made out of paper instead of cells<\/em>\u201d. Similarly, in her chapter on her own laptop, Annalee Newitz writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s practically a brain prosthesis. Sometimes I find myself unable to complete a thought without cracking it open and accessing a file of old notes, or hopping online and Googling a fact or two\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And both of these are truly remarkable, mostly because I believe most of us relate to this sentiment. In the digital age with technology being so wide-spread, most of us delegate our knowledge and memories to a laptop, a phone, or a memory stick. So many of my friends (and me, too), when having trouble remembering the last week or our summer, pull out a phone and go through the gallery to see which moments come in which order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what I am likely to do if you ask me about the syllabus: I\u2019ll go to Notion, because I filtered out what I need to know from Canvas and put it in there. Wrote it down and, well, immediately forgot<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mediation of memory<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bernard Stiegler wrote a rather gloomy and dystopian chapter on Memory, where he talks about the consequences of delegating knowledge and memories to an external source. While I agree with him about the dangers of information manipulation and the act of remembering for yourself as the \u201ctrue form of knowing\u201d, I am glad (or blind) to say my situation is not as dramatic when it comes to consequences and explications. The information isn\u2019t being manipulated in my case: professors just change syllabus and move deadlines sometimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But let\u2019s go back to Hlubinka\u2019s chapter on databooks. She describes losing her databook as a small-scale tragedy: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“I felt as though I had lost my life. My memory of all I did and planned to do from January to May 2003 vanished, along with the physical form that contained it.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If I were to be locked out of my Notion and all the professors were to delete their syllabi at the same time, I would be very confused but also unable to retrieve all the important dates, all my notes, and all my study plans at once. Our understanding of what we wrote down will forever be tied to the object holding these memories: it\u2019s a memory stick that, if lost, won\u2019t be remade.\u00a0While it is liberating to get some weights off our hard-working brains, we should keep one thing in mind: once we delegate the memory, it will be outside of our control<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mediation of control <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see myself a lot in how Hlubinka describes her friend Ginger and the way she manages her own databook. Ginger colourcodes her plans (check!), leaves herself extra time so as to not be late (check!) and says her need for control is rooted in her now recovered eating disorder (check!).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For us, documenting, planning, colourcoding is a way to structure the way we see our lives, understand our weeks clearer and, therefore, control it. In the modern days more than ever, our lives are filled with chaos, days are filled with events, weeks filled with plans. How do you stay on top of things the way we\u2019re expected to? We simplify it: this day is for writing comments on blog posts and reading two more chapters, tomorrow we will worry about source traceback, and the day after that Ingold\u2019s Making<\/em> will be due in the library, so I\u2019ll need to re-check it. The world seems more approachable when it\u2019s simplified and, therefore, controlled. And then we give ourselves a pet on the back for doing what we should: Ginger uses stickers, I get to see my calendar turn green from all the completed assignments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, both Ginger and I simply like our objects of structure. She says: “my audience is myself . . . a lot of these devices are to make me happy<\/em>“. Me too, Ginger! I spend hours on end picking pretty covers for each subject, finding pretty gifs, assigning symbols. And while I don\u2019t mind people looking over and noticing how cool my Notion is, it is for me only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mediation of self<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hlubinka describes her lost databook as a reflection of what kind of person she was: what caught her interest, what events she considered or attended, what conversations she had and what topics she found worthy of writing down. She says \u201cI like to think that anyone could open up my lost paper datebook and see what kind of person I am<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While databooks and notion study calendars are purely personal, we as humans cannot stand to not mark things as our own, not shape them to be ours. There is so much personality in how we structure our books and notions just because it will so heavily depend on how we see this world. In a way, it is a two-way communication: we input our view of the world into the databook which reflects this view back at us, shaping it further. Ginger tracks her life by weeks, I break down a term into months, because this is how we live our lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Control, calendars, due-dates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To sum it all up: the way we plan our lives is a powerful mediator of control, memory and self. It allows us to simplify our life and therefore understand it better, and while storing all the most important memories on one Google Drive is not recommended, digital planner allows us to take some weight off our brains when it comes to planning ahead and remembering dates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Hlubinka, Michelle. \u201cTHE DATEBOOK.\u201d In Evocative Objects: Things We Think With<\/em>, edited by Sherry Turkle, 76\u201385. The MIT Press, 2007. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctt5hhg8p.13<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newitz, Annalee. \u201cMY LAPTOP.\u201d In Evocative Objects: Things We Think With<\/em>, edited by Sherry Turkle, 86\u201391. The MIT Press, 2007. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctt5hhg8p.14<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stiegler, Bernard. \u201cMEMORY.\u201d In Critical terms for media studies<\/em>, edited by W. J. T. Mitchell & M. B. N. Hansen, 64-87. University of Chicago, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Header and post by Bara Bogantseva<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quick warning: this essay mentioned eating disorders. If this is something you\u2019re not comfortable with, feel free to skip this post. Stay safe. Ironically, my evocative object was heavily used to create this. And many other things, because I organize my whole academic life with my notion. Not to be that person, but I love … Continue reading Evoking control, memory and self while planning my studies<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103716,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,31],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-my-evocative-object","tag-technological-reliance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103716"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}