So forgetting is good for you. But why does it have to be my friends’ names? | Michele Hanson
" Michele Hanson is an author and Guardian columnist
Some marvellous news from the University of Toronto: memory lapses are good for your brain, they are part of its efficiency and an important part of being intelligent. Nothing to do with old age. What a relief for me. Because for decades I've worried that my increasing forgetfulness was a sign of my elderly brain going down the pan. Wrong. According to the Toronto scientists, the brain knows what it's doing, and it seems to be clearing away pointless details so that our brains are not clogged to bursting with information and can function more efficiently as we battle on with life.
Good. I need all the help I can get. But I'm not totally convinced by this research. My brain's choices of what to delete have not always been helpful. And I don't like to show off, but I already suspected that it was nothing to do with old age, because my brain has been wiping vital bits of information for decades. It was at it in the early 90s, when I went to a computer class to try to keep abreast of the new technology. The teacher was very patient and crystal clear, but because I had no short-term memory to speak of and knew that within seconds her every instruction would have disappeared into the mist, I had to write things down straight away, which meant I missed the next instruction, which made me and my brain panic, which caused total memory wipeout.
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