Why People Are So Forgetful
Understanding why you are so forgetful
You got to admit, you’ve had the occasional old person moment – you probably left the house with your keys still inside, maybe you forgot to let the dog go out to do its business, or even that time when you went to the supermarket forgetting what you were going to buy.
Yes, we’ve all had our brain farts at times, and to tell you the truth, it’s getting me worried – I might even have my midlife crisis right now.
Your brain is like an Overloaded Computer
However, a German study recently last month has concluded otherwise, and that the brains of people over 45 actually are more like computers that have been loaded with a large amount of information.
Not degrading, just slow, due to the enormous amount of data.
It’s just like how running a “search” on your computer after not reinstalling Windows for 3 years will take you longer that it would on a brand new operating system. It’s not your fault.
In the study, it was conducted on a bunch of computers which had to load information.
They were configured in ways that a human brain would be, and in their tests, they had to pull specific information from a small bank of data, and in the second run, had to pull information from an almost unlimited bank of data.
The results spoke for themselves as the computers were able to pull the needed information off a small bank of data leaps faster than when they had to pull information off an unlimited bank of data.
It’s quite a good representation of how the mind works, and how it configures and pulls out information from the brain that it needs.
Why are old people forgetful
For example, a 60 year old will probably have so much memories and experiences in his mind that when you ask him about his daughter’s 18th birthday, it will take him a while to search through his information libraries, recall the memory, and process it in a way that he understands, so that he can communicate it to you in a way that you would understand.
It makes perfect sense!
Consider the amount of things that’s stored in your head.
Your first love’s name, that thing you learned in biology class back in high school, the names of all the people you know, and even the favourite drinks of a few select people – your brain is amazing, yet even though it’s slowing down sometimes, it doesn’t mean that it’s any worse than it was before.
So, the lesson of the story here, if there was a lesson, is that you shouldn’t be so hard on ‘ol grandpa when it takes him a while longer to figure things out, or to call out your older friends when they take longer than you’d like deciding where they’re moving their knight on the chessboard next.
Slower doesn’t necessarily mean dumber – some people are wiser than you think, and that explains the whole thing about the old being wise.
