How much do you think we remember after 30 days?
About 20 percent. That is what a fellow named Ebbinghaus figured out more than 100 years ago.
What does this mean for answers about events that happened more than 30 days ago?
You see where this is going? Round about 80 percent of the stuff we hear comes straight out of our forgotten zones. Oops. So, how is it that, when we ask folks things about events in their lives, what they recall is usually more than 20 percent of what happened?
We are truly ingenious creatures when it comes to what we believe happened!
We make it up. Of course, there might be good reasons, logical reasons, for saying what we say. And our guess-work might be first class. Still, if you believe Ebbinghaus (and his work has been repeated in labs around the globe ever since), we are filling in gaps. Big gaps. We are actually making stuff up. Because at 30 days the studies let us know we forget about 80 percent of what happened.
So what does this mean for us and for those who give us answers?
It means first, be compassionate. Most folks don’t think their memory of events is no more than 20 percent guaranteed. Second, double check what you hear. Third, remember that the vast majority of what we recall might need fact checking, and be flexible about what the honest to goodness truth might be.
Now, let’s see how much of this post you remember in 30 days!