Ask HN: Is your memory as bad as mine?
I've never had great memory. And as I age (41) it feels like it's getting worse, which is kind of expected. For example, I've just watch a World Cup football match. 20 minutes later, talking to someone about it, I could only remember the winning country (South Korea), and wasn't sure who the opponent was (Portugal or Uruguai). Uruguai was playing another match at the same time, so I forgot who played against who a little after both matches ended.
I do generally have an OK working memory, have a decent paying job, but frequent lapses like that one worry me.
Does anyone else have a similar struggle and is there anything you think I could do about it?
81 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadAs GP alluded to, memory in humans is not at all like memory in computers. Do you know a lot about Portugal or Uruguai as countries or cultures? Can you name any players on either of those teams? Could you draw the flags of either of them from memory?
All of those sound like a ton more information to remember than just which country played. And it is. But if you knew that, it would be easier to remember which country played, as human memory is more based on connections than facts.
I only watch soccer during the world cup and possibly half a match if it's on wherever I am. But I can tell you that Japan beat Spain yesterday, which knocked out Germany, because I've been to Japan and Germany in the past, and am actively considering a visit to Spain this coming spring or summer.
Though I don't remember the score of Japan-Spain, or the fourth country in their group. It was a 1 goal differential, so probably 2-1 or 1-0. I care enough about the game to know that it was tense at the end, but not enough to keep track of the individual goals.
If you don't have any of these problems, then, yes, if what you are describing is typical for you, you may have something else going on and potentially worth asking a medical professional about. (And of course, if you do have any of these issues, talk to a medical professional, in any case.)
We all have lapses of memory, but in healthy adults, they tend not to interfere in normal day-to-day functioning.
You end up feeling like "25 year old me was so much sharper and quicker, wtf?!"
Assuming that: you work in tech; you're probably not neuro typical; you've developed so many coping strategies for life's ups and downs you don't even think about them;
... have a look at what does stick in your mind. Are you spending a lot of brain power on underlying anxious thoughts, stuff that's always flying around your head that maybe focusing on work helps to ease? Is your mind acting like something's hogging the CPU?
Do you track your sleep quality, and if so using which method?
I do work in tech. What do you mean by not being neuro-typical?
In relation to what GP was talking about, if you have spent most of your life with either of these conditions it is likely that part of your normal every-day functioning involves employing some set of defense mechanisms and learned reactions. Part of that in the past may have been developing an affinity for computers. It can be hard to navigate a world in which most people seem to understand more about interpersonal interaction than you do, and/or where most people are cool with ambiguities that don't make sense to you. These strategies take up a lot of CPU power in your brain, and can (among a whole host of other things) make your memory more foggy because you are busy spending all your time in a kind of low-level survival mode.
As an aside, poor autobiographical memory is a really common side effect of ADHD, a condition which can be philosophically framed as having a difficult time connecting to the past or future as well as other people can.
I was pro lockdown (until we got the population vaccinated) and I still believe that was the right thing to do. But I also think there are knock on effects small and large that we are going to feel for a long time. My memory being out of whack is definitely one and I’m curious if anyone else has seen a similar change?
When tired, or when not interested really (like binge watching youtube smartness) I forget everything.
Is this something that is relevant in your case?
I also barely have what they call an "autobiographical memory"—I remember that things happened, but any kind of timeline and about 90% of the specific images or details a normal person recalls, I don't, as in, I can know "we went to the beach last Summer, it was at city X, we went to such-and-such attractions" but barely any of what normal people would call memories. What month was it? No clue. Specific memories of what happened? Not really, a few disconnected images and all I can do is fill in the rest with guesswork that often ends up being a smear of all the times I did anything similar.
But that part's always been the case. You'd think it'd make it hard to live life but I made it to almost 30 before I learned that wasn't normal, and learned somewhat later that it's an actual disorder of some kind that's just barely starting to be understood.
It does make "tell me about a time that..." questions in interviews absolute hell. I either have to take extensive notes all the time and then study them before interviews, or basically make something up. I cannot come up with that kind of thing on the spot, from my actual memory. And "write about what you did this Summer" was always the very hardest assignment all year, through grade school. Hated those. And now I know why! Hahaha.
I've been learning how to navigate it - for example "tell me about a time that..." is extremely difficult for me. But if I change the prompt to "think of a time when I was living at my grandparents house in the winter" or similar, I can begin to recall things, specificity is key. I also have difficulty when people are like "remember X time", and nothing will come up, and I'll have to ask further questions to try and trigger the memory, often when it triggers the whole thing can flood in.
I also find that my mind doesn't typically rehash old things, the mind isn't stewing in memories, it's usually in futurescapes or random thought lines on topics. I actually think this is one of the reasons for me not being able to pull it up quickly and needing specific ways to trigger the memory, it's like the memories are in cold storage.
Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) is that name for the condition.
Interviews I've read with exemplars who've been the means for researchers discovering that it exists (I think some are in the article's references?) puts them about one notch worse than I am, but most of what they describe rings extremely true.
In particular, remembering that things happened but having very little of what I gather are ordinary memories of the events, not having an idea of where those events fit into any kind of chronology without painstakingly working through some kind of dependency reasoning like "well we got X there and we had that at time Y so it must have been before that..." I'll be like that for stuff that happened last year, or ten years ago, but also last month, or even last week. Ask me when some notable thing I recently did happened and I'm likely not to be able to place it more precisely than "I think it was this quarter, at least? Maybe?" but even that I get wrong pretty often ("um, no, that was Spring of last year") Like I don't get that stuff wrong 100% of the time, but it's definitely most of the time. Maybe 80%, and often comically wrong.
As described by those interviewees, this has surprisingly little effect on, say, work or school life. I remember facts and processes and such just fine. Maybe better than most, even.
I've gone to therapy after it was suggested that this might be childhood trauma, but the therapist seems to be focusing on different things.
Can I ask what the disorder is (perhaps I'm misunderstanding and called autobiographical memory?), and how you found out that it is one?
I've had trouble falling asleep since I was a very young kid (mind racing with questions and thoughts, ruminating on times I've done things wrong which are the only events I've ever been able to form strong memories of—and as an adult, add anxiety to the mix) and wouldn't be surprised to find out it's a consequence of only getting enough sleep one or two nights a week for practically all of one's life. But, the cause could be something else entirely, I have no idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiographical_memory#Indivi...
Yes, there are of course medical cases and disorders. But I'd guess a lot of variance just comes from differing individual "training intensity".
There must be quite some variance in the average number of times that individual people are triggered/challenged to recall some memories (and process them) in their everyday lives. Some people don't communicate with others - generally, and also more specifically about what happens/happened in their life - as much as others do.
And some people are more inclined to subconsciously cultivate their own memories, than others. Those for example, who enjoy storytelling. Their mind probably creates stories (which apparently are an essential mental feature) around their memories more easily, which facilitates recalling these memories.
I recently started to record myself making coding projects. It’s been really enlightening about some of my bad habits. For example, I look EVERYTHING up with a search. I knew that I did this, but, watching myself, I’m learning it’s worse than I imagined.
Also, boy do I ignore my editor and let it work against me instead of for me. I gotta fix that.
You can watch me struggle on YouTube if you want to see what I’m talking about. Most of my videos are scheduled to come out in the next few weeks.
http://youtube.com/codazoda
I'm entirely sure I convinced one interviewer I was one of those much-feared "fakers" when I used the wrong method invocation syntax in a language I'd worked in for years and had written code in as recently as the prior week.
Regarding ignoring your editor: I do that on purpose! I avoid use of many IDE features, especially when learning a new large codebase. I find that after grep'ing for some method enough times, I'm more likely to memorize its location; eventually I develop the muscle memory for going to the right file, as well as a more complete understanding of the codebase's layout and design.
In contrast, if I lean on IDE jump-to-definition features, I find that memorizing the codebase layout is completely hopeless for me. The IDE then becomes a crutch which also impedes my ability to get an intuitive feel for the architecture.
A coworker confided similar fears he was experiencing early-onset Alzheimer's or something. I shared that I had similar experiences and getting more vitamins helped.
I don't know which vitamin(s) I was missing, specifically. I don't know how common this is. But a simple daily multivitamin and a consult with a doctor might fix things.
In the US, drug stores always seem to have a selection of these.
Some time ago, I took a position at a large financial company and do nothing but shuffle from meeting to meeting on wholly unrelated topics. Between the stress and constant context switching, my memory is useless in or out of work.
So, just wondering if you are in an environment with stress and constant context-switching?
Of course, hitting 40 is part of the equation, but the way you described it sounded pretty familiar.
This page really helped me to see it for what it was, and then go get diagnosed. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/adhd-what-you-n...
Random fact that interest me, those stick around for years with no effort.
For work, and I suspect that what you care most about: Take notes, always be taking notes. Doesn't matter where, as long as you can look things up relatively easy. This is something I've just started doing a few months ago and it has helped immensely. It can even make you look like a blood genius when you can hand over a complete set of meeting notes to your boss. I'm sure it's not for everyone, but it helps me stay focus on the person who's talking and having notes is a godsend if you're in a meeting regarding a task you won't be working on right away.
TLDR; You're probably fine, but consider if you're paying attention to what you're doing and regardless: For work, always take notes, it will help you.
Strangely enough, just yesterday I went for a physical. My doctor was talking about something drug related, and like 20 minutes later he said something else, and I interjected with a comment like "Wait, earlier you said X, now you're saying Y, so does that me we could Z?" He goes "wow, you have a good memory." Meh... I don't know about that, but the subject at hand was important and interesting.
OTOH, I feel like I have a lot of trivia stuff into my head, but am pretty bad at what another commenter described as "autobiographical memory". I could tell you nearly nothing about what I did on, say, Monday of this week. I mean, I know I went to work, because I always go to work. But beyond that? Not much. Does that matter? Probably not, because I think it just means nothing particularly interesting or novel happened on Monday. But I could tell you all about the day a few weeks ago when I was driving to work and a mattress (or something) flew off of a truck in front of me and landed in the road right in front of my vehicle and nearly caused a big wreck on the Interstate.
Anyway, at the end of it all, I think the answer to this question is the same as a lot of questions about health issues on the Internet: if you're genuinely worried, go see a licensed medical professional. Maybe it's nothing and you wasted a half day on a doctor's visit. But maybe it's something and going in and getting some kind of treatment will save your life.
Yeah sounds like we're in a similar boat. My forgetfulness has been like a tragic running joke with friends and family. It's been less of a problem at work due to notes and project planning.
I just treat everything like work now and keep a pen and notebook/bookmark in my pocket at all times. Have so for about 15 years now. It mitigates most of the issue.
In grade school and college, I had excellent reasoning skills but my short term memory was pretty average or less than average.
I thought my memory was going to shit too but I am pretty sure I basically took 15 years off from even attempting to memorize anything.
4 months of Anki and I feel as sharp as ever. I wouldn't doubt memory is not that much different than sitting on the couch all day and then wondering why you can't run a mile like you use to.
I think the secret is to keep your mind active - if you regularly try to remember stuff you haven't thought about it in a while, access to those memories becomes more readily available.
It makes me wonder what my life could have been if I knew when I was young, but it's all bonus to me.
Sorry to brag but it's one of the best things in my life.
If I eat less soy, like say eating someone's homemade bread made with soy vegetable oil (which is the most likely one), I'll get brain fog, and about 5 days later eczema.
Multiple times I have deliberately eaten soy and logged the effects. I'm about 90% confident it's soy at this point. I'm a skeptic and still feel it could be some other factor but I am highly confident.
Avoiding soy is difficult. Especially for someone that loves chocolate.