You wouldn’t guess from having a face-to-face conversation with Dixon that his brain is damaged. That’s because nothing about his speech or general intelligence was affected by the accident. Indeed, Dixon’s high IQ has won him membership in Mensa and ensured him a 3.7 GPA when he finished his graduate degree in educational psychology at Temple University in May. He also recently recommenced a long-standing tradition of traveling to a different country every New Years Eve.
Four years ago, Dixon was out for a run near his parents’ house when he was struck by a car and injured so badly that doctors weren’t sure if he would survive. He doesn’t remember the accident, but it left a permanent and pervasive mark on his life: Since that day, his memory hasn’t been the same. In particular, his episodic memory—specific, autobiographical details like where he was, who he met, what he ate and the like—has been compromised by the traumatic brain injury he sustained that late November afternoon.
Since the accident, Dixon has relied heavily on his smartphone to augment the part of his brain that is no longer functioning properly. He uses Twitter throughout the day to make note of the details he isn’t likely to remember tomorrow: What he was reading about, what kind of coffee he ordered, who he spoke to. Even the details of his sex life, which he tweets about in Korean to avoid embarrassing over-the-shoulder moments. All of this goes into his private Twitter account, which he can later refer to, search, and analyze.
Dixon’s strategies for boosting his brainpower with technology are clearly very effective for him. It’s also striking just how normal it seems—It probably says something about the rest of us that a man with literal brain damage doesn’t look at all unusual consulting a tiny computer all day long. But while he inadvertently shames us for being glued to our smartphones, Dixon is also offering up free productivity tips: Here’s how lifelogging and setting digital reminders can help any of us automate our lives. But Dixon’s system could be especially valuable to other people with memory disorders.
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