There is virtually no limit to the amount of information you can remember
Given how much we seem to forget on a daily basis, it may seem strange but it’s completely true that our brains have an essentially unlimited ‘storage capacity’ for learning.
So if we have a virtually unlimited storage capacity, why do we still forget so much? That’s a huge topic certainly worthy of it’s own post, but a lot of evidence suggests that we’re more likely to remember something if we make an active effort to understand it, and if we encounter it regularly – as this strengthens the connections between neurons in the brain and makes information easier to recall.
But we can only remember a handful of things in our ‘short term’ memory
A large part of the reason we seem to forget so much may well be that, whilst our long term memory is virtually limitless, our short term, or ‘working’ memory has a much, much smaller capacity. The original research into short term memory says we can only remember 5 to 9 pieces of information there at any given time, though more recent experiments suggest it may even be as low as 4!
Being able to access information quickly (i.e. on the Internet) makes you less likely to remember it
It’s great being able to access almost any piece of information in a few seconds, and resources such as Google, Wikipedia and YouTube have clearly been major parts of a revolution in how we find information.
But studies suggest there is an interesting flip-side to being able to access information so conveniently: if the brain knows it can just access it again so easily, it’s less likely to bother remembering the information itself!
