How is it that I can remember a 50-year-old phone number but cannot remember my new cell phone number?

I don’t remember them either. In the day, you had a little black book. You had to punch out or dial every number every time you made a call.

Now it all goes to phone memory. You tap on a name and it makes the call.

Simple answer: You’ve had longer to remember and use it. The repetition has embedded in your head.

I’m sure there’s a neuron/brain/memory thing that I don’t know about.

@ChazMaz is right. It is because you don’t have to dial the numbers anymore and there is no reason to commit it to memory. You would remember it if you typed it out 20 times I bet. The motion of your fingers hitting the keys and reciting it over and over would help it stick. Many phone numbes I remember have to do with the pattern on the keyboard.

Also, if you live in a big city it is now remembering 10 digits, in the old days it was most likely 7, because most people you called probably lived in your same area code. Lastly, you are older now and have a bunch more stuff you are dealing with cluttering your brain. When we are young we do not have many things we must remember, or keep track of, or worry about, so it is easier to focus on one thing and commit it to memory.

You had fresh sparkly neurons fifty years ago.
You had fifty years less stuff crammed into your brain.
The person on the other end (Grandma) was gonna give you cookies if you got it right!

Try not to use speed dial for awhile…and give yourself a cookie when you dial it right and you’ll have it memorized in a jiffy!

That which was laid down long ago when you were young is among the brightest of the tracks. That which is recent is laid down in old tissue, and it just doesn’t take as well.

As we age our short term memory is adversely effected much more than our long term memory. The latter often seems to improve, if only by comparison.

I am curious.
All you individuals that are seeing it as a memory issue. Are you all under the age of 35?
Reason why I ask, is anyone 35 or younger missed the boat of need, having to remember phone numbers.

I can recite phone numbers from 30 years ago. Due to nothing more then the repetition of dialing them, and forcing them to memory.(if I wanted to keep that number)
Once I got a cell-phone. It became set it and forget it. Having the phone attached to your hip.

Funny thing. I have a list of numbers that I call at work from the office phone. Those numbers are in my roller desk. I look them up, I bang them in. I remember those numbers.

I do not remember any number that I have loaded into my phone memory.

No need to. That being pretty much it.

@ChazMaz and @JLeslie I think you got it!
@marinelife and @Merriment I hope that you are not right. Where do you get this information?

My grandmother’s number was even shorter it was LE[banon]228, 2 letters 3 numbers, and her phone had no dial on it.

I have a theory that works for me and it justifies my lack of memory on certain things lol. When I was 10 I didn’t have that much that I had to remember. Now I do. Most friends and family have at least 2 different phone numbers and I have many more friends and family than I did. I have to remember numbers up the ying yang now.

But I do think that @ChazMaz is right when he says that we often don’t need to remember them as they are in speed dial or the address book in a phone.

I just realized I posted this in general when I meant social. Please feel free to be funny!!!!

Technically, you are dealing with the phenomena of rehearsal and interference in encoding.

@anartist Sorry, it’s true:

“A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. The poorer performance of older people in laboratory tests of episodic memory may result from failures or deficiencies in metamemory processes, e.g., failure to monitor task or individual item difficulty. To study age differences in prediction of memory performance, an associative matching task was used to compare young (N=20) and older (N=20) adults’ memory for a list of 60 unrelated paired associates. Metamemory measures, and prediction and response evaluation were also taken. A substantial age effect was found in memory performance. Young adults were correct on 50% of the pairs in associative matching, while older adults were correct on only 30%. The two age groups did not show any substantial difference in the accuracy of the predictive measure. Older adults underestimated task difficulty, however, showing a substantial overestimate of the number of correct associative matches they would make.” Education Resources Information Center: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?nfpb=true&&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED230833&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED230833

@dpworkin WHAT?? In forgetting or in posting?

In failing to encode the cell-phone example in the same way you encoded the older example.

@dpworkin By letting be entered in phone memory instead of my own as ChazMaz suggested?

Well, certainly that method requires less rehearsal, but also there is an emotional component to one’s home phone number as a child that was not present when the cell-phone number was being transferred from short term memory.

@dpworkin so I simply have to work on it especially as I don’t call myself unless I misplace the phone [then I probably couldn’t as the number is taped on the phone]—Like make up a math mnemonic for the #s?

The best way to remember something is to approach it from different angles. Memorize the number both forward and backward and as an acronym derived from the letters associated with the phone numbers, for example.

@anartist -—I could be wrong, but what’s the worst that could happen? Your finger could get tired and you’d could get some cookies? Bummer!

@Merriment ah cookies . . . from the kitchen of my grandmother past? Right next to the big jar where she kept the cinnamon red hot candies? Nice if i could . . .

Because 50 years ago your memory was functioning better than today. So sad.

I have to say that I suffer from this as well. I am likely to remember something you said yesterday better than anything you said two minutes ago. Then again, I am an Aspie so I should not be taken as the norm as far as neurological functioning goes.

But I understand perfectly well. I can remember the phone number we had when I was 7 but cannot remember my wife’s cellphone number aside from it’s #2 on my cellphone speed-dial so I have to think that technology is somehow to blame.

Besides, how often do you call yourself? The only reason I remember my own cell number is because I put it on hundreds of job applications, thus drilling it into my long-term memory.

I never store any numbers on my phones..remember em all or look them up in a real address book still.

@Coloma – You are CRAZY! ;-)

But, in control of your world. :-)

@ChazMaz

Thanks for the complement! lol ;-)

Yeah, don’t ask me why, probably cuz I am not a real techey kinda person, I hold my own, it’s just the way I roll.

I know every friends home and cell numbers by heart, I do love my laptop with the built in webcam though..I can always make a video to play with pertinent info. on it.

Infact, I have been told by my hypnotherapist that our subconscious loves the sound of our own voice, of course, it sure hears it enough. lol

Supposedly if you want to really program your mind at the deep subconscious level you should burn a CD in your own voice with whatever material it is that you are trying to plug into the deep hidden conduit of the subconscious. haha

I completely stopped remembering phone numbers when they all became stored in my cell phone.

It seems that what we don’t have to remember, we don’t. It is a tad worrying when you think how much computers and phones do for us now, but theoretically we should have lots more brain space freed up to think up solutions to the world’s crises.

I stopped balancing my checking account when i got online banking—especially after i found out my accountant did too.

I am guessing that it has been in your brain longer than your new cell number.

You forgot to build memory hooks for your new cell phone number.

Forgive me for coming late to the party! I may be repeating someone, but in addition to using ten numbers (as jLeslie said) there are so many numbers they’ve added area codes in many states. There are even so many phone numbers the prefixes don’t signal where a person lives like they used to. I wouldn’t worry about Alzheimers yet. If it was Alzheimers you’d forget different things also. You’d forget many types of things, not just one type.

@mattbrowne and @dpworkin I will do that now