The first ever commercial broadcaster in the UK, Independent Television (ITV), has reached the grand old age of 70 this week. The company’s online app features hundreds of historic moments to explore, as well as some of the best programmes from the decades. I suspect that many of us who have explored that list will remember those old programmes with fondness. The list may bring back memories of your childhood or a love for a series that shaped your life.
But if I were to ask you for a detail of what happened yesterday, you may struggle to recall it. Indeed, only yesterday, I had difficulty remembering something that had happened only half an hour beforehand. I was speaking with a colleague about a visit from a student. When my coworker asked which student, I froze for a second or two, as the student’s name had completely left my mind. I could see them in my mind’s eye, but had momentarily forgotten their name. My colleague just told me not to worry, “it’s your age”, and then laughed…!
However, even though we joke about losing our memory as we get older, it is not normal. Age-related memory loss is often overstated. Memory requires effort, and part of the reason we forget things is that we don’t make sufficient effort to store and recall items that are not vital to us. As we age, we tend to be more selective about what we remember, which can make it seem as though we are forgetful. We are not – we just didn’t bother to remember something in the first place.
Recent research from Yale, though, shows that memory issues are worsening in younger people up to the age of 40. The ten-year study reveals that the memory skills of older people have actually improved over this period. Something else is going on that is affecting human memory.
I blame the Internet. Indeed, back in April 2013, I recall spending the morning in Bristol with TV presenter Angellica Bell, during which she interviewed me for the BBC TV programme “The One Show”. It followed an article I had written about how Google was affecting our memory. The article was based on the fact that researchers from Columbia University, New York, had shown that the more we used Google, the less effort we made to remember things. Effectively, we had offloaded our brain’s memory to the Internet.
Now, though, new research throws an interesting new light on this issue. Australian scientists have been studying memory in a tiny worm and discovered something new. Yes, I know it’s a worm that is only 1mm long, but it shares 80% of our DNA and uses the same neurochemistry as humans. This research shows a clear and direct link between the amount of dopamine and the ability to remember. Without dopamine, the worms have perfect recall.
In her book, Dopamine Nation, the Stanford psychiatrist, Dr Anna Lembke, points out that the addictive nature of much of what we do online is turning us into dopamine junkies. Indeed, a recent chat with a student uncovered that they had not eaten a meal the night before because they had spent three hours “doom scrolling” on TikTok and the time had “flown by”.
Given that memory problems are increasing in the younger population, I’d hazard a guess that this is linked to dopamine. The more they scroll around the Internet, the more dopamine they get and the less effective their memory becomes as a result. Add to that the offloading of any attempt to remember things, because we can always look it up online, and then we have a perfect cocktail for the failure of human memory.
I can remember those ITV programmes from decades ago because my brain had to make the effort to store things. Now, I can’t even immediately recall the name of a student I saw 30 minutes ago because my brain is affected by the Internet. My brain doesn’t bother to store things unless it is vital, because it knows my “alternate memory” is Google. Plus, all that dopamine sloshing around my brain is probably making my memory less effective.
The same could be happening to you as well. So, what can be done? Using an app like RescueTime can reveal how much doom scrolling you do and the amount of time you spend on social media. You will be surprised. Once you understand the extent of the issue affecting your dopamine levels, you can take action to address it, thereby improving the neurochemistry of memory.
Apps like RescueTime also show that we spend an hour a day on Google, not actually achieving anything. We constantly search for the same things, suggesting our brains have forgotten something we have previously looked up. That could be linked to spending too much time sitting at computers. Physical activity helps improve memory, as does social interaction. So get off that desk chair, go out and meet people, and stop relying on Google so much, and your memory will improve, no matter what your age.
