The forgetfulness of youth

Memory loss is most often associated with the elderly, but more and more young people today are having trouble remembering things

Since finishing her graduate studies earlier this year, 25-year-old Chang Lu has found that she has become more and more forgetful.

She is prone to forgetting the dates of appointments she's made, and has attended parties where she was the only guest because she misremembered the date. She has even started forgetting the names of familiar acquaintances.

"It's just like in that South Korean movie, A Moment To Remember, where the main character can't remember the man she loves because of severe memory loss," said Chang. "I don't think I have amnesia, but sometimes I'll just suddenly forget what I wanted to say five seconds ago."

Though memory loss has traditionally been understood as an affliction of the elderly, recent studies have shown that a significant number of people begin having trouble with remembering things before they have even entered middle age.

In June, a study of 18,614 people conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles found that 14 percent of people aged 18-39 admitted to experiencing memory problems. For people aged 60-99, this number was 26 percent.

"The difference is much smaller than we expected," said Zhou Liang, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Helsinki's Neuroscience Center. "This isn't to suggest, necessarily, that the memory of young people today is poorer than of young people in earlier decades or eras. But what we can say is that more and more young people are struggling with forgetfulness."

A similar survey in China, conducted by news portal ifeng.com in which more than 80 percent of the 71,722 respondents were under the age of 50, found that 45 percent of those surveyed admitted to frequently experiencing lapses of memory.

To-do: go to work

In order not to neglect any of her duties as an IT worker at an office in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, Chang has taken to writing meticulous work logs and to-do lists on her smart phone.

"When I first started working, I often forgot to accomplish the assigned tasks," said Chang. After speaking with her friends and colleagues about her difficulties with remembering things, she discovered she was not the only one.

"They all told me that their memories had deteriorated as well, compared to when they were younger. So I've just accepted it as a matter of course," said Chang.

Chang speculates that her memory loss is due to difficulties with sleeping while finishing her master's degree, combined with the repetitive banality of her present occupation.

"There are no new elements. The brain operates in the same way one day after another without needing to think anything new," said Chang.

A 28-year-old woman surnamed Zhang, who spoke to Metropolitan on condition of partial anonymity for fear that it would affect her career prospects, also admitted to experiencing memory lapses that have affected her ability to do her job. Zhang works as a civil servant in Hubei Province.

"During one work banquet, there was a woman who was talking excitedly with me, but I just couldn't remember who she was," said Zhang. "Eventually, she caught onto the fact that I had forgotten who she was, and said that we had met three days earlier. It is so embarrassing!"