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I have a brain outside my brain. It lives on a string in the outside pocket of my handbag. I take it everywhere, and when I need to access something inside it – a half-finished screenplay, say, or an image of my long-deceased family dog – I just plug it into the nearest computer and the contents of my psyche are displayed on the screen. No errors, no omissions, no gaps in recall. My second brain, quite unlike the first, is perfect.

The brain in question is not an organ but a piece of technology commonly known as a “memory stick” or a “key drive” (for the way it sometimes fits on a key chain). This small piece of plastic, metal and silicon, which usually holds up to two gigabytes of information (the total memory of a decent new laptop is around 60), has become a ubiquitous piece of equipment for the legions of borderline-workaholic young professionals employed in the worlds of arts, letters and media.

For those of us who spend our waking, working hours in front of computer screens, the memory stick is not just a disc substitute, it's a synthetic externalization of our deepest ambitions and desires. A replicant psyche furnished exclusively with half-finished masterpieces and carefully selected mementos, the memory stick – unlike our first brain – is mercifully devoid of surprises. Or as one struggling screenwriter friend of mine puts it jokingly: “For years, I searched for a matchbook-sized vessel to hold the ashes of my hopes and dreams, and now I've finally found it.”

And as more and more urban strivers take to toting one of them around like a talisman – shoved in pockets, strung around necks or on key chains – design companies are catching on.

Oooms, a contemporary studio in the Netherlands, manufactures memory sticks in the shape of wooden twigs, a cool visual joke in the age of the overextended metaphor. (What's next, a BlackBerry in the shape of a blackberry? Spam for spam?) Trinket designers are also jumping on the trend, turning the little data doodads into earrings, pendants and colourful silicon bracelets in an attempt to cater to the teen-girl geek crowd as well. Personally, I'm happy to keep my extra grey matter tucked safely in my purse pocket, away from prying eyes (I'd rather not have the outline for my next book hanging from my ears). But the knowledge that it is there, close by, fills me with an inexplicable sense of security. A radio producer friend of mine carries his key drive with him everywhere but rarely uses it. The allure of the memory stick, he says, lies entirely in its possibilities. “It's comforting to have knowledge on your key chain. I have it in case I happen to be at the office and need to bring home the collected work of Friedrich Nietzsche. Then I can just go to the Project Gutenberg website, download it and read it on my laptop at home.”

So far it hasn't happened, but my pal is ready on the draw. In the meantime, when his colleague tells him he needs to “read these four articles for tomorrow's meeting,” he simply puts them on his memory stick and goes out to dinner. “It feels as if I've read them,” he says. “Which is almost as good as reading them. It's like in university, when you'd go to the library to do your reserve reading, but then you'd just make copies instead.”

In this way, the memory stick operates not only as an information storage vessel, but an intellectual photocopier. Putting something on your second brain is only one step removed from absorbing it with your first one, after all. It's like the smug feeling you get when you purchase a very serious book, as if just owning all that information is making you smarter.

But the second brain goes further than the written word, offering a fully realized interior world of photos, video clips and music. Imagine an alternate psyche entirely removed from your real one in which you can retreat when the need arises. I know people who carry photo albums of their families and hours of music files, all for the purpose of psychological isolation in the open office.

Speaking of isolation, isn't there something slightly lonely about the memory stick? There it sits, in the pocket of my bag, holding all my fondest as-yet unfulfilled hopes, wishes and dreams. Sometimes I'm tempted to swallow it, like the key to a secret box, or stick it into my ear, so my two psyches could become one.

But that would be crazy. Especially for someone with two brains.