Yup, that is what the scientists tell us.
The elephant brain is denser than the human’s, and the temporal lobes, associated with memory, are more developed than in humans. Elephant’s lobes also have more foldings, so that they can store more information. That’s why elephants have excellent memory.” (source). So here is the question, what has a better memory, the elephant or the Internet?
This post is actually following up on a comment by Rick Lelchuk about personal responsibility and how the onus of this responsibility falls on the individual. He used the memory of the Internet as an example, meaning if someone uses bad judgment once and blurts out something online without thinking of the long and far-reaching consequences of this action, it will haunt them for a very long time – because the Internet remembers.
I have heard of many specific examples where people are suffering from these unwanted consequences of “bad” Internet behavior – some not even by choice. One woman in particular was mentioned in an article about a scandalous case when she actually had nothing to do with the case; she came on the scene after the incident. This is actually not an example of personal responsibility, as she had nothing to do with it, but it is a good example of the very long memory of the Internet. Her name still appears on the first page in Google, and although it doesn’t say anything negative about her, we all know about “guilt by association”. Couple that with the fact that many people don’t read beyond the first paragraph or so and tend to make judgments based on perhaps only half of the facts. How many times have you heard someone say, “I read a review about such-and-such and it proves the product (or service) is crappy’, yet if you check out the same review, you might often find the second, third, fourth, etc. reviews are actually positive?
Take another example of someone losing their cool online and acting unprofessionally – as we have all seen. This person’s comment will be showing up in Google for a lot longer than he or she will appreciate – no doubt. There are reputation management companies out there specifically for the purposes of managing and/or helping re-build business’ reputation. Have you seen examples of people saying something online that has left its mark on their reputation? No names please