The brain drain

I don't know my boyfriend's mobile phone number off by heart. I sometimes forget his birthday. I have 10 nieces and nephews, but I can only tell you the date one of them was born and that's because she's my fairy godchild and she reminds me at every hand's turn.

I occasionally go blank when asked to recite my landline number. I forget to pay bills. You could say I'm a bit dopey when it comes to remembering personal facts and figures, but it was a relief to discover this week that I am not alone.

I know this because another of those deeply important, groundbreaking surveys has been released. You know these surveys. Not a day goes by when some marketing company doesn't cobble one together, telling us what our favourite flavour of crisps says about the car we drive, or rushing to inform us that blue-eyed single people are more prone to committing adultery with hazel-eyed married folk. Another survey, a classic, recently revealed that people in Laois buy more stationery on eBay than any other county in Ireland. So next time you are looking for a highlighter pen or some staples, you know where to go.

These surveys are illuminating, often providing us with vital information, the kind that's so bleeding obvious we would come up with the results ourselves if we just sat and thought about it for two minutes. Such as, according to a recent survey, politicians like the sound of their own voices. Or, men with six packs tend to spend a lot of time in the gym. Or, newspaper columnists rely hugely on data gleaned from recent surveys to fill their articles. Ahem.

The latest survey contains the, um, shocking revelation that our reliance on technology is having a detrimental affect on the amount of detail we can remember. Apparently, the over 50s, not having grown up to be reliant on gadgets and gizmos, are better at remembering certain things. The under 30s, meanwhile, and in my case the under 40s, are going around spacing out on the minor details of life such as the date of their wedding anniversary and their phone numbers.

Duhhhh! Of course we are. Why bother remembering a number when it has been stored in your phone for all eternity, or at least until you accidentally flush it down the toilet? Why keep a birthday in your head when you can stick it in your crackberry and be beeped at when the day arrives? We don't remember because we no longer need to remember, which is kind of the point of being alive in the noughties.

Remembering stuff is, like, so 1977. Forget wrinkles, remembering important dates and numbers is a sure-fire way of showing your advancing age. You might just as well go around showing people your botox receipts.

Incidentally, the poll of 3,000 was commissioned by a company which wants to flog us "brain trainer" puzzle magazines. You can just imagine the boardroom conversation as they brainstormed their way towards the survey.

Suit Number One: Why don't we do a survey that shows people aren't remembering as much stuff as they used to, so people will rush out and buy our brain- improving products in a total panic, thinking their brains are melting. It's genius! I'll text you all the details.

Suit Number Two: Er, yeah, the only thing is I've forgotten where I left my mobile phone.

Anyway, here's the "science" bit. Apparently, "the boom in mobiles and portable devices that store reams of personal information has created a generation incapable of memorising simple things." A quarter of those polled said they couldn't remember their landline number, while two-thirds couldn't recall the birthdays of more than three friends or family members.

"The tech-savvy young fared worse than older people. The under-30s could remember fewer birthdays and numbers than the over-50s, according to the survey. Two-thirds said they relied on their phone or electronic organiser to remember key dates."

They even got a professor in on the act: "People have more to remember these days and they are relying on technology more for their memory," said the professor of psychology at Trinity College, Dublin, Ian Robertson, aka the Mind Doctor.

The Mind Doctor is quite right. We do have too much to remember these days. Like, who got fake-evicted from Big Brother last week (Charley). Like, which Dublin comedian we used to have a big crush on is now having an affair with the woman who runs the cab office in Coronation Street (Sean Hughes).

So much useless trivia, so little brain space to store it all. It's a sign of the times. According to a recent survey.

Róisín Ingle presents Weekend Blend on Newstalk from 10am-noon every Saturday