I'm extremely forgetful, but not because I'm old - I've been forgetful my whole life. And a new study says amnesia and scattiness are actually more common in young people.We're all showing reduced attention and concentration spans and having more memory lapses, the reason being the sheer pressure and complexity of modern life.
A quarter of us regularly forget the names of close friends or relatives, and seven per cent even forget their own birthdays. Household accidents through carelessness are rising, and the average attention span has dropped to five minutes from twelve a decade ago.
But despite the stereotypes, the survey found the over-50s can concentrate better than young people, presumably because over the years they've learnt how to apply themselves and how to deal with pressure.
The decline is all due to the constant demands now being made on us - heavy workloads, urgent deadlines, endless emails, mobile phones, multi-tasking and new technology to name a few.
I certainly find myself that it's increasingly hard to concentrate on anything for any length of time without being distracted or my mind wandering to some essential task I need to do.
One cause of the growing distractedness is the nagging fear of "missing out" - that if we aren't constantly checking our emails, mobiles, TVs or our workmates' conversations, we might miss something vitally important or wildly exciting - or just someone's birthday. We don't want to be the gormless git who didn't know Britney had broken her leg.
I'm as prone to this anxiety as anyone else, being a news junkie, but it certainly doesn't do much for my peace of mind. Or my memory either, as I struggle to separate all the gossip from the shopping list and the bus timetable. What are we, human beings or sniffer dogs?
