I’ve reached an age where I am beginning to have noticeable memory loss in one particular area. I can’t remember new names very well at all. You can introduce me to a group of people and I won’t retain anyone’s name for more than a minute or two. I can never remember the names of new actors and actresses. The only other area where I am experiencing this trouble with retention is internet acronyms. I know the short and simple ones. It’s the ones that are five letters or more. I learn them. Then I see them again weeks later and I’ve forgotten what they stand for again. I noticed that my mom had the same kinds of problems in her 40’s where she started getting her kids’ names mixed up all the time. She’s 80 now and seems as sharp as ever, so I hope this is just a genetic quirk in my family. Does anyone else have trouble remembering what things like ICYMI mean?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
What does ICYMI mean?
“In case you missed it.”
Ask me again a month from now and I’ll have to Google it.
I think it would be better to just write some of this stuff out.
Thanks.
Glad you asked. In order to forget acronyms, first you have to know them.
As for names, Boo, sorry, I’m of no help. I have a phenomenal memory for some things, but names and faces? Never. It takes multiple exposures. It’s my biggest weakness as a political organizer.
The one I always remember is IOKIYAR.
It’s okay if you are a Republican.
shit, I can’t even remember how old I am half the time, never mind people’s names.
It takesme at least 4 times to remember a name. AT LEAST.
I’m probably at least10 years older than you. By the time one is entering their 40’s, you can expect to start struggling with little things like you describe. It is frustrating as hell, but it is just part of the normal aging process. You learn little ways to condition yourself to remember certain things. When that doesn’t work, I’ve taken to writing things down when the thought is fresh in my mind. Of course, then I have to remember where I put the note. 😛
I’m fifty-four and while I can still remember names, I have the menopausal mental fog that makes me forget words.
It’s embarrassing. I’ll be chatting along and start to say something and totally blank out. And it’s not exotic or uncommon words, either. It’s me talking and freezing up and fumbling for a word and my son giving me an odd look and saying, “You mean ‘chair’?”
No history of serious memory problems or Alzheimers in our family, so I hope this is some bizarre and temporary malfunction of hormones and such. (I had to stop and think about the word “hormones” for a second). D’oh!
I may be as many as 20 years older than you – I don’t recall – and ICYMI, for guys like us, means “In Case You Misremembered It”….. :o)
So it’s fair to say that we should stay off your lawn.
Unless you want to play quail to my Cheney.
Do you get enough sleep…quality sleep?
I find that if I get not enough sleep or it’s not quality sleep that I just think poorly during the day.
Not last night. My boy screamed his head off from 11pm-3am.
I’m 52. I have sleep apnea, moderately high blood pressure, lots of stress (mostly due to having three teenage girls). These things combined with any amount of being overweight are all interrelated along with how sharp you are mentally.
Figure out a way to get more sleep and better quality sleep, and many people magically find that they are mentally sharper, they can manage their blood pressure and weight better, and are less stressed out.
Good luck with that.
Mark
I have the same problem. Someone once told me, as long as you retain your reasoning abilities anything more is just frosting on the cake and you can always find a taxi to get you home.
My friends all know that I don’t do introductions because I never can remember their names in a social setting much less new peoples’!
I cannot remember names worth shit, and I’m only 27. I have to be using a name to directly address the person whether to their face or in a story. Once I have something to relate it to then I have decent retention, but still maybe only 70% or so of names.
I will frequently meet people and have to ask for names 4-5 times, because I am a visual person when it comes to that sort of information. It could partly also have to do with the fact that I suspect I have a light form of dyslexia, when spelling I often flip two letters that are next to each other if the phonetics are muddled.
Me too with the names, but I’m well into geezerhood, so much of my memory cells’ content is now transcribed onto Post-Its and the hard drive in my desktop. The ability of some congresscritters to remember my name amazes me.
Names are hard to remember. It is part of how the brain functions. Everyone who doesn’t have exceptional memory has trouble with names. It doesn’t mean anything.
I’ve always been terrible with names. There is a skill to it that I never learned. Heard one time to associate the name with something else. Sounds good, but only worked once. The guy’s name was Drake, term for a male duck, and so when I saw the guy, I thought, “Quack, or Duck” and then thought for a second, OK, mallard? No. Woodie (a type of duck)? No. And then it would come to me, DRAKE!!!
Of course, by then the encounter was generally well past the time to say the name out loud, and so was still no better off than just forgetting and saying, “What’s up man?” or whatever…
I’m 27 years old and not that great with names. Almost on principle, I refuse to learn most new internet acronyms. Most of the time I can figure it out by the context (e.g. during a discussion about the law, I can usually figure out what IANAL means). Maybe it’s because I type very quickly (over 100 wpm sustained), but I’ve never had any use for acronyms. I just don’t care about saving an extra three seconds.
And it seems to me that the usage of acronyms has decreased over the decades (along with other irritating affectations like l33t spe4k). Or maybe it’s because I’ve stopped reading content created by high schoolers.
I’m 41, so about your age. I’ve always had trouble learning people’s names but I always remember faces and voices. I just can’t always associate a name with them.
Where I’ve had trouble in the last few years is thinking of the right word to communicate a thought. These are words I’ve used many times but they’re not really common words and it’s like they’re right at the tip of my tongue, but they’re NOT coming out. So I will obsess over it.
Taking a 120 mg Ginko Biloba along with my daily vitamin helps sharpen the mind quite a bit. Also the high-quality sleep thing is very important. I need to make sure I get enough physical activity each day so I am sufficiently tired by bedtime. Also, turning off the TV most of the time has reduced stress enormously. I used to like to have some noise in the room so I’d turn it on. Bad idea.