Do you tend to forget the names of people? Or maybe you to go the store and forget the things you planned on buying? Or you simply forgetting things?
If that happends to you often, and you worry that something may be wrong with you – don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong, infact – the opposite is true!
Researchers have published a new study that show that people who keep forgetting things are actually smarter than their friends who remember everything.
The university of Toronto in Canada found that intelligence have nothing to do with people’s memory abilities.
Usually, we think that people who can remember anything from how to multiply simple numbers and family member’s birthdays are smarter, but a “forgetter” have many efficient capabilities.
It turns out that in many cases, perceiving the bigger picture can be better for the brain and also for your safety than remembering all the little details.
In fact, the part of the brain that stores the memories also writes important memories on top of older and less relevant memories.
Remembering all the little details isn’t what makes us smarter, according to CNN.
What’s better is to put the important memories upfront and in the center, and forget the rest.
This can be explained using the example of how someone can remember a person’s face, but can’t recall his name.
Yes, it might be embarrasing, but if you look it from a different angle, it can actually be better.
Imagine that you were a lion in the savannah that need to pay attention to everything in order to survive. Knowing what is a threat and what isn’t, is far better than remembering the name of everything around you.
But the intelligence of the “forgetting” brain doesn’t end there. It also help us organize old memories that we may no longer need, so we have room for newer and more important memories.
Although it’s better to remember every detail and also look at the bigger picture, less and less people are capable of doing so.
When the answer to almost any question is just one click away, there’s almost no need to remember the names of all the former US presidents, for example.
But the study doesn’t say you need to keep forgetting things all the time. So if you forget to buy milk, for instance, always remember it’s just your brain doing it’s job.
So if you forgot what you read, hey, you may be smarter than others!