Want to echo this. I think we are remembering our remembering. There is bonafide scientific research on this. There was a Microsoft Research Cambridge project called SenseCam .. I think the first paper was helping a woman with memory loss. She was really remembering her memory of recalling a moment.

When I encountered that research, I reflected on my own childhood memories and concluded that this DRAM mechanism is what is going on for me.

On an alternate note, I'm in my 40s now and I hardly remember anything. I have two little kids and am often shocked when I see pictures from a year or two ago (can't remember when they were that young). A few other tech friends have suggested things are similar with them. I am constantly having to learn new stuff in my line of work (AI) ... stuff from 2017 is often referred to as "old". I'm a bit worried my memory capacity is finite and starting to overwrite on itself (sort of like a fake SD card that overwrites content or the Johnny Mnemonic movie)

Spaced repetition is a technique for exploiting psychology's spacing effect for getting information to be stored longer [1]. That is (roughly) a memory needs to be recalled to be retained and the optimal time to do that recall is just before forgetting the material. This is implemented by Anki, which I loved using throughout my PhD and a few years afterwards with 20K+ flash cards on AI, math, and neuroscience. I started skipping doing it every day after becoming a professor, but I wish I had the time to pick it back up.

Also, memories become plastic and maleable when recalled, so just because they can recall something does not mean the memory hasn't been twisted by doing so [2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacing_effect

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_consolidation (see section on reconsolidation)

I run SpacedRepetition.com - glad to chat if folks want to discuss further! ([email protected])

I'd add, the "on this day" photo library feature is amazing as your kids get older and memories fade. Little video snippets (and live photos: priceless) from when your kids were 2, 5, 10 years younger. Searching for keywords from image/face recognition when you remember something and getting a real memory back.

Of course, there's a balance with living in the moment too, but as someone who forgets what happened yesterday, I try to document as much as I can.

That sounds like memorizing a storytelling rather than what happened.

Yes, but that’s how memory works (which is why it’s so fallible). There aren’t any memories that are stored like a video file.