Maybe Being Forgetful Isn’t Such a Bad Thing
If you’ve been the least valuable player on every trivia team you’ve ever been on, or if you can’t recall much of anything you learned in school, even in the classes you really liked, don’t fret: There may be a purpose to being forgetful. After analyzing data on memory, forgetfulness, and brain activity in both humans and animals, researchers from the University of Toronto concluded in a new study that brains may be designed to forget old memories in order to make space for new ones — sort of like you used to do with VHS tapes, if you can remember what those were. This function is advantageous because it allows us to get rid of outdated, incorrect, or conflicting information when we’re presented with new information that contradicts it, thus streamlining our decision-making process. Generalizations may not always be a good thing, but they are often useful to us in the evolutionary sense, especially when we’re pressed for time.
And while those of us who remember (however faintly) a time when it was necessary to memorize smaller pieces of everyday information (like phone numbers, or bank PINs), there’s no need to feel bad you don’t know these things offhand any longer. Just because you can memorize a phone number doesn’t mean it’s useful to you to do so, especially when that information is easily stored on your phone. Being able to rattle off every state capital might be cool (in certain crowds, anyway), but it’s not going to come in handy very often. With all that phone-bank/useless-trivia space freed up, perhaps your brain can better hold onto memories and information that are far more relevant and important to your present-day life.
Article Source: http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/06/being-forgetful-isnt-such-a-bad-thing-after-all.html
Image Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C-XlE-b_-I8/TadWGEXoLPI/AAAAAAAAAEo/6-bTfrOwgOw/s320/forgetfulness.jpg
VOCABULARY WORDS:
1. Trivia (n) - matters or things that are very unimportant
2. Fret(v) - to feel or express worry
3. VHS (n) – was a widely-adopted videocassette recording ( VCR ) technology that was developed by Japan Victor Company (JVC) and put on the market in 1976. It uses magnetic tape 1/2 inch (1.27 cm) in width. Originally, the abbreviation VHS stood for Vertical Helical Scan, and was later changed as the technology gained in popularity.
4. Streamlining(v) - make (an organization or system) more efficient and effective by employing faster or simpler working methods.
5. Generalizations (n) – a general statement or concept obtained by inference from specific cases
6. Evolutionary (adj) – relating to the gradual development of something
7. Pressed for time (idiom) - In a hurry, as in How long will it take? I'm really pressed for time. This idiom uses press in the sense of “subject to pressure,” a usage dating from the late 1600s.
8. Rattle(v) - to move or go especially rapidly with such sounds
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
1. Why is being forgetful not such a bad thing according to the article?
2. Why do we forget things?
3. Do you forget things easily? What things do you forget easily?
4. Is there something you want to forget but couldn’t? Why would you like to forget it?
