Why Are We All So Forgetful?

A friend of mine called me to tell me about a major trauma in her family. I spent about 30 minutes on the phone consoling her. She promised to keep me updated.

Two days later she texted me, asking me if she had told me about her family emergency.

It was initially puzzling to me that she had not remembered our call. But I know that when it comes to forgetfulness, she is not alone.

I’m finding that many people forget conversations we’ve had. Or they start to say something and then “lose their train of thought.”

I myself have suffered from this problem. It could be the natural aging process at play here. But I suspect we are suffering in large measure from a massive information overload. And there’s just so much our brains can compute.

And the way we receive information! There’s a constant barrage of tweets and Facebook headlines demanding our attention.

We are so overloaded that we often don’t take the time to understand the details of what we’re being offered. Ever post a link to Facebook to a news story only to find people asking questions that are answered in the article? We are in trouble if people are reaching conclusions on important events that affect their lives based on just the headlines.