When you joined ICQ you received a UIN and that was the only publicly searchable method to connect to other people. You could update your profile with email or username, and manually make that public, but it wasn't searchable by default. If you wanted to connect to a stranger (and the stranger didn't want their email public at the time), you would usually just use their UIN.

I remember the phone number of my great aunt who lived in East Germany. It was a 12-digit number (including country code). We called her once, maybe twice a year, and usually my mother was dialling. I was maybe around 8 or 9 at the time (it was around 1988).

I cannot even remember the birthdays of people close to me, let alone any phone numbers except my own. But I still remember that f*king 12-digit international phone number from almost 40 years ago...

oh and of course I remember my ICQ number ;-)

Human memory works in a weird way

I still remember the phone number of this girl I wanted to date in high school, 867-5309

I tried to call but lost my nerve.

It is from a time when we were used to remember phone numbers, and where we shared our phone numbers to keep in touch (calls, sms). ICQ directly picked on that and it was just another „phone number“.

Unfortunately I only remember the first half of mine after so many years. In the age of smartphones, at least my brain degenerated to not be able to recall more than a handful of important phone numbers.

I still remember the phone number I had from when I was 10-19, but I can't remember my sons or my mums phone numbers, or indeed any numbers I've had or used since I was 19 other than my current number that I got in my 30's. Basically, the moment I got my first cellphone in '95 or so, I stopped learning phone numbers, other than remembering my current number because I give it out regularly.

But also, I think, because my parents drilled that old number into me, because remembering it was a "lifeline".

I made a point to memorize my wife's and my parents' cell numbers, just in case I'm ever in a situation where I don't have a phone and need to reach them (like if I got robbed or something).

It's a sensible thing to do, but I have so many ways to get at online services where I can reach them that it hasn't felt pressing - if I'm in a situation where the only phone I can get hold of isn't a smartphone it sounds more like a 999 or nearest consulate kind of situation... But you're right it'd probably be worth doing anyway.

So you get robbed (or something), and you're physically OK but have no phone and no wallet.

You find a phone to use, however you do that, and dial the local emergency number (0118 999 881 999 119 725...3), and maybe they show up and take a report.

And then they leave.

Now, you're in the same situation you were in before (no phone, no wallet) -- nothing has really changed.

What happens next? What's your next move?

I don't think I've ever traveled anywhere where I'd be concerned I would be unable to get at an internet connection long enough to get at my info, including copies of all my documents, or would be unable to find help to arrange transport back to my home or my hotel where I'd have other means. It's feels like a contrived scenario if you travel primarily in developed countries, and mostly urban areas. If I were going somewhere in the middle of nowhere, or a third world country where I'd be concerned about more likely to be targeted, maybe. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but having grown up before cellphones and with no expectation of having easy access to a phone, this obsession with being able to easily contact someone just is very foreign to me still.

> where I'd be concerned I would be unable to get at an internet connection long enough to get at my info, including copies of all my documents, or would be unable to find help to arrange transport back to my home or my hotel where I'd have other means.

I don't even know where to begin getting copies of "all of my documents" online as a native US-born citizen.

> It's feels like a contrived scenario if you travel primarily in developed countries, and mostly urban areas. If I were going somewhere in the middle of nowhere, or a third world country where I'd be concerned about more likely to be targeted, maybe.

I got robbed and beat up walking back from the store in a very clean, well-lit area of a growing city of ~45,000 once -- in Ohio, of all places. I didn't consider myself a target then, and I don't consider myself a target now. But it happened anyway, and if it can happen to me in that seemingly-safe environment, then it can probably happen to anyone else in any other environment.

> I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but having grown up before cellphones and with no expectation of having easy access to a phone, this obsession with being able to easily contact someone just is very foreign to me still.

I'm not saying that your ideas don't have any merit. I also grew up before cell phones and was well into adulthood before they became common.

But I am saying these seem a lot of mental gymnastics to perform in justification of avoidance of the positively arduous and herculean task of...simply committing the phone number for a resourceful friend to memory.

---

And why? Well, because friends are awesome.

"Hey, I'm in San Francisco. I don't have my phone or my wallet. No, no, I'm OK -- I'll tell you about it later. Yeah, some money would help right now. Sure, I can call you back in an hour. Thanks man."

...and soon enough, that resourceful friend will have that sorted well-enough for me that I can at least buy some food somewhere and start getting back towards whatever "normal" is, just as I would do for them.

You miss the point - I have copies of everything I need easily reachable anywhere I can get online.

And if beaten up and robbed, it just seems inconceivable to me that if I can get to a phone to get help, I can't also subsequently get online.

It's not a lot of mental gymnastics - this discussion is the majority of the time I've spent on this in a lifetime. I just don't live in fear of anything like that happening. If I'm ever wrong, then so be it - there are far more risks far more worth caring about to me.

I mean, you do you.

You're obviously free to avoid remembering anyone's phone number for the rest of your existence, and it certainly does not behoove me to attempt to saddle you with such a profound and monumentally exhausting mental debt.

It's weird that I can't remember my phone number from that time

But the ICQ number has stuck with me

Strangely enough, I don't remember my phone number at that time, but I do remember my ICQ#

  >why do so many people remember 
  >I suppose it also came at a time for a lot of us where things seemed to wedge into our brains more easily.

The ~2million years we spent around campfires, repeating oral traditions of our forefathers, instilled a phonetic/rhythmic/mnemonic mechanism of action for remembering "arbitrary" information.

That is why recalling phone numbers, large (mentally untoken-able) words, and the digits of PI all are far easier when done in the sing-song fashion - it is utilizing the highly-optimized linguistic/recall portion, we evolved to handle the near-rote-memorization required to allow our culture to survive.

> Was that actually the identifier we shared with people to connect?

Yes. It was like giving out your telephone number.

And that's also why we remember it. It's from a time we used to remember phone numbers (smartphones weren't around, in many countries even normal cell phones weren't widespread yet, and even those had limited memory and usually no way to migrate to a new phone (the SIM could store entries too but had laughably low capacity, like 25 entries with max 9 letters for the contact name)).

So, committing them to memory was just a thing. And our brains get less plastic with age. I can remember my home phone number from 1982, but not my last cell number (before the current one) although I used it for 3 years, as recently as 2014. The insane amount of information streaming in front of our senses probably also triggered some unconscious attitude adjustment (not going to bother remembering any of it, if it's important I'll write it down).

My number is so burnt into my memory, I'm only half-joking when I say that if I get Alzheimer, I'll recall it long after I forgot my own name.

It's a combination of HN users self-selecting for certain traits, and ICQ typically having been used ~20-25 years ago when our brains were a lot more plastic.

I'm not sure what I ate yesterday for lunch, but I just tried my old ICQ, 6697979, and got in on the first try. The password was right in my head, 12 alphanumeric char which don't mean anything, and I never used it for anything else.

Conversely, today I had to use my domain password at work for a system not yet integrated with our 2-factor, and it was quite an effort to remember it, since I hadn't typed it in a week.

Isn’t there some study which showed that the maximum length number someone can easily remember is around 7 digits? It’s quite strange tho I remember it too, 3243845

Mine was only six digits, and it was easy to remember since the first three were "333". I Can still sign in, but my contact list is empty and I have nobody to chat with.

I think it showed it in the client along with your name handle.

Maybe was the easiest way to add people you knew in real life, esp if you didn't make your real name searchable. (Remember at the time people were more paranoid about staying anonymous on the Internet; this was before most social networks.)

448 484 004. It was weirdly easy to remember and like everyone else here, almost 2 decades later I still remember it. I miss those simpler days, Discord makes it much easier to connect with larger groups of people these days but it just isn't the same magic. Or maybe it's all just rose coloured nostalgia glasses? Either way, it's pretty sad.

I agree with the suggestion that people just don't commit as many things to memory anymore, but that doesn't explain why we still remember certain random numbers from so long ago, while forgetting others. I can instantly recall my ICQ number, but there are plenty of old friends' phone numbers I've forgotten, and those were people I called multiple times a week for years.

Here's a free hypothesis: Maybe it was important to remember your ICQ number. Without it, your message history and contact list was out of reach. In that sense, it fits in the same mental space as a password. What I mean is, there was a cost to losing it. So, you were incentivized to commit it to memory in a way that you weren't with many other numbers.

In contrast, while it would be inconvenient to forget a friend's phone number if you wanted to chat with them, at least you had options. You could generally look them up in the white pages, or call a another friend and get their number, or just ask them when you saw that person again at school the next day.

So, the cost for not remembering a phone number was lower than the cost for not remembering your own ICQ number, and this probably made it mentally stickier.

... Another possibility is a confirmation bias. Maybe we're just not hearing from the 95% of ICQ users who can't remember their number.

I still remember the number after 20+ years. Crazy.

889246**

I forgot what I had for lunch yesterday but somehow I can remember my ICQ number.

3330*

I'm going to miss it, even if it's not been used in decades.

Hmm I only remembered it partially, but I see it was on old phpbb boards. That said, password is probably gone forever.

831364 but suffered an account takeover. ICQ shutting down mildly eases this long torment of losing the 6-digit account.

Happened to me too. 666260

Same. The guy didn’t change any of my profile or recovery info, luckily, so I was able to get it back. And then he sent me a message from another account asking why I had taken his UIN. We ended up chatting for a while. It’s a fond memory.

I actually tried to delete that UIN a few years ago, but the support folks wanted me to provide a few UINs from my contact list to verify ownership. No chance I’m going to remember those.

Mine was easy to remember, so I did. Mostly repeating digits. 2288665

> Was that actually the identifier we shared with people to connect?

Yes, exactly.

I remember mine, 15254346. Good question...

Yeah, kinda crazy.

I didn't even remember ICQ had numbers until I read the first comment in this thread posting theirs and most of the number immediately popped into my head, 10238* (cant remember last two).

Makes me wonder what other things in my brain are back in archive, just needing the right push to bring to surface.

That's cause we used to have to remember everything. We don't anymore. This guys explains it more hilariously than I ever could.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3bRvSfLV7R/

4007929... great question...!

Likely the same reason I remember my grandparents (now passed) phone number. A handful of digits I saw or referenced a lot.

84369534

I mean it was basically your phone number for chat. I'm sure many people remember their childhood phone number as well.

1657721. Yeah. Why do I remember this 25+ years later. I guess you did have to tell someone else the number so they could find you. Maybe that's it?

9507416

526450, I think

20896111. (I think I had a shorter one that I deleted, back when I was trying it out for the first time, before I had online friends, and didn't know the value of length.)

RIP, ICQ.

389360!

Oh wow... I still remember my old ICQ number (very low 100Ks). Basically lived on it for many years.

Hey neighbor! 1375028

I learned to type on a keyboard by logging into ICQ and sharing that number with people I wanted to connect with. It felt like my internet address.