• Question: Why do people loose things and why some people more than others?

    Asked by lisaloo to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 17 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      People only have limited attention spans, and when they have to think about too many things they forget some things and lose them. Or sometimes things fall out of your pocket and you don’t notice (like when I lost my passport right before a flight…)

      Some people are more forgetful than others for a variety of reasons – they’re busier so have to remember more things, they’re tired, or in some cases maybe they have a mental illness that makes them forget everything. Sometimes, people are just different, and good at different things. I rarely forget passwords or codes, but I know people who are always forgetting and not being able to pay with their bank card!

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      I’m a person who loses things but I’m getting better at not losing things! I often am thinking of other things while I’m in the middle of something, so you might call me forgetful, or just scatter brained… I try to really think about somethings when I put it down, and if I do I tend to remember where to look later on. Some people might lose things more than others because a) they have more things to lose in the first place b) they have a busy life and they move around a lot or c) they are always thinking of other things and not paying attention to what they put down! But, everyone loses things every now and again 😉

    • Photo: Claire Lee

      Claire Lee answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      You can think of it this way: we all have a long-term memory, and a short-term memory.

      Long term memory takes a longer time to store information in (repetition and practise is one way of doing this), but once it’s in there it’s there for pretty much life. (eg, your address, your friend’s phone number, etc). And it can store essentially an infinite amount of info.

      Short term memory is different – it’s where our brain stores stuff that is “on the go” – but it has a size limit! On average, our short term memory can store 5 pieces of information.

      Now, some people can store more, and some less – you can actually train your brain to store more (reading books – any books (not cartoons) – can help with this). Also, the size of each “bit” might be different for different people – some people can store a message, name and contact number as one bit, whereas for someone else that could take up 3. And finally stress, tiredness, sickness, nutrition, all of these things can affect what your brain can effectively store as a “bit”.

      Now the point is, if we have 5 bits of info in our short term memory, and then add a 6th one, the first one gets overwritten, and it’s gone. So I guess what happens when you loose something is you’ve put it down, and you brain stores that as a bit. Then, if you don’t transfer that info into your long-term memory, that bit will eventually get overwritten when other things happen, and hence, you forget.

      Side note: this is why your teachers give you homework – because doing examples over and over again is one of the best ways of getting your work into your long term memory (and then it’s effortless to remember in a test or exam). Otherwise, remember, if you’re cramming 5 minutes before a test, you’ll only remember 5 points from all of your cramming!

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