Declining memory/attention span/sharpness

Personally I find that since I became a smartphone user my attention span has decreased markedly. I was, still largely am, a pretty big reader but now I find it hard to read more than a couple of pages before having a compulsive gawk at my phone. I scroll through articles rather than painstakingly reading everything. I personally don't feel any decline in my memory, but certainly the way I take in information is all different since the smartphone came into my life.

Being constantly able to look things up with little difficulty definitely has a negative effect on one's memory. In the pub, trying to remember who starred in what, for example, and instead of everyone thinking about it, someone just googles and the memory isn't exercised. Can't not have a negative impact.



Obligatory reference to London taxi drivers documentary.


I have a checklist for a set of procedures I do in work every day - there aren't that many that I shouldn't be able remember them, but every day, I check the list, and would not be able to recall all the procedures without it.


Slightly related, on the porn thing - You know the card game "Memory", where you place all the cards face down, then take turns (or practice by yourself) turning them over two at a time and trying to find matching pairs? I haven't played in years, but I was pretty average at it. However, my recall improved dramatically when using a pack of pornographic playing cards (where the matching numbers had the same lady pictured). Presumably the effect would have been the same had the pictures simply been bizarre or otherwise "memorable", rather than a standard playing deck, but 'twas still interesting to note, I thought. And if anyone needs participants for such a study...

Candie wrote: »

Before smartphones people memorized phone numbers, addresses, schedules, etc. That trains your memory in a way that people don't get now because we all carry memory devices that do it for us. When you wanted to find something out in ye olden days there were several steps involved with learning, finding the source of the wanted information, obtaining it, reading it and committing it to memory as it usually wasn't easy to re-access..

I agree! I've a fairly good memory, and can remember landline phone numbers from 30 years ago, but don't have the same recall for mobile numbers. Actually, the mobile numbers I remember easiest are ones I knew before I got one myself (I was a late starter, getting my first mobile in 2006 at the age of 33). And I only got my first smartphone a few months ago at 45 so I haven't been fully corrupted yet.

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I'm 43 and my memory has gotten terrible. Not to the point I've forgotten important things, but if I watch a series on Netflix and have to wait months for the next one I'll have forgotten about 70% of what happened.

I'd say part of that is down to the fact that there's so much more available to us, and as wakka12 said, that's why there are recaps. For me, Vikings was the worst. For the first few series, there were only 9 or 10 episodes, so you'd wait ages for the next series, and then on RTÉ, they'd show 2 episodes at a time.

wakka12 wrote: »

Im 23 and Ive noticed Ive got really bad at remembering celebrity names.

There are so many similar, bland 'celebrities' around now, it's no wonder that your brain doesn't want to remember them. :pac: