The Sad Reason It’s Getting Harder & Harder To Remember Simple Things, According To Psychology
Dragana Gordic | Shutterstock When you’re young, you expect to be able to remember things fairly easily. Memory problems are traditionally associated with older people, not young adults in their prime. And yet, young people are finding it increasingly difficult to remember even the simplest things.
This problem has led many scientists to wonder what exactly is causing such an issue with memory, especially among the people who should be struggling the least. Unfortunately, the general consensus is that something that’s deeply ingrained in our daily lives is to blame. Seeing improvements will likely require some huge lifestyle shifts for most people.
We’re having a harder time remembering things because of the impact technology has on our brains.
In a study published in the journal Brain Sciences, researchers examined the phenomenon of brain rot and how it is keeping us from remembering things as well as we once did. This, they said, “refers to the cognitive decline and mental exhaustion experienced by individuals, particularly adolescents and young adults, due to excessive exposure to low-quality online materials, especially on social media.”
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Brain rot has turned into something of a joke, especially for the young people most likely to experience it at the hands of technology, but the researchers concluded that it has serious implications. “The behaviors to which brain rot is attributed, like doomscrolling, zombie scrolling, and social media addiction, have deep ramifications in terms of one’s mental health, emotional well-being, and conception of self,” they noted.
According to another study published in the journal Neurology, adults who reported experiencing cognitive disability jumped from 5.3% to 7.4% over the 2013 to 2023 decade. It was found to be especially prevalent in adults under the age of 40, who actually reported a jump from 5.1% to 9.7%.
Admittedly, this study had some pretty significant limitations.
Researchers determined if adults had cognitive disability from a simple survey question: “Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, do you have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?” They filtered out anyone who was suffering from depression, as those can all be symptoms of that disease.
The question was pretty vague, and it’s not like there was any hard evidence, like brain scans or neurological evaluations, to back it up. However, it was all self-reported, and you might assume that when reporting their memory status, people would want to appear impressive. The fact that such a large increase was reported could be considered telling in and of itself.
How much screen time is appropriate for children is a pretty common topic of conversation, but it seems that even adults need to be careful. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute suggested that adults should limit their screen time outside of working hours to just two hours per day. With so many technological distractions competing for our attention, that’s no easy feat.
Some young adults are really picking up on how screen time is affecting their brains and trying to do something about it.
Career strategist Michael Hall shared some thoughts on how spending so much time on screens is impacting people’s memories. “Our generation might be the first to die with more memories of other people’s lives than our own,” he argued.
Of scrolling, he said, “It files away somebody else’s breakup or win or vacation while the moment right in front of you, while you’re scrolling, doesn’t get saved. So now I treat screen time like a literal memory trade. Every moment I scroll is a moment I’m willing to forget of my own life.”
Anyone who’s tried to multitask before by scrolling through social media while also attempting to do something else can tell you Hall’s words are true. To make sure we keep our memories intact, we’ve got to stop the brain rot at its source. It’s time to truly be mindful and intentional about the time we spend with technology.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
