We tend to think of our thoughts as short films with factual knowledge, stored on a shelf in our brain, waiting for the moment we need them. It turns out reality is completely different: every time you recall a memory, you alter it, and the new content of the memory will be influenced by recent events. For example, the whole family gathered on Independence Day four years ago; you don’t remember exactly who came and who didn’t, but you think you remember that the aunt who has attended all recent family events was there—even though she wasn’t.
Start choosing your friends wisely because it’s impossible, even if we want to, to maintain too many social connections. This was proven in a study conducted in 2011 by Professor Robin Dunbar—he found that people maintain friendships with up to 150 individuals per year. He conducted the research using Facebook account data from volunteers, analyzing how many people each person interacted with in one year. Even those with 5,000 friends did not exceed the rule and maintained friendships with no more than 150 people. In other words, despite their tendency to be sociable and expand their social circle, they were still unable to connect with everyone on a personal level.
Imagine you land at an airport and, within ten minutes, you arrive at the baggage claim area and pick up your suitcase immediately. Now picture another scenario where you get to the baggage claim area in two minutes, but then have to wait eight minutes for your suitcase to arrive. Which scenario would you prefer? Note that in both cases, the same amount of time has passed before you could collect your suitcase. However, most people—if not all—will say they prefer the first scenario because the brain loves activity, and it releases the hormone dopamine, which creates happiness, after successfully completing any task.
Studies show that our brain cannot store more than 3–4 new pieces of information in the short term, such as numbers, items, or lines. The fact that it’s easy to remember 3–4 pieces of information explains why so many things are divided into groups of 3–4 digits, such as credit card numbers or phone numbers we remember in clusters of three or four digits.
Our brain constantly processes information from our senses and presents it to us ready for use. For example, in first grade, we read very slowly, paying attention to each letter. Over time and with practice, our brain learned to process information much more quickly and efficiently. Today, we don’t need to focus on every single letter; instead, we read the first and last letters, skim over the middle, and “guess” what the word is. Try this and you’ll find you can read the following sentence quite easily: It dseno’t mtater waht oredr the ltteers are in as lnog as the fsrit and lsat ltteers are in the rgiht pclae.
Have you ever walked down the street, thought about something, and lost focus on your surroundings, only to find yourself at the end of the street? Although we usually associate daydreaming with absent-minded people, it’s much more common than you think—an average person daydreams about 30% of the time, sometimes more. It turns out this isn’t necessarily a bad thing: studies show that people who tend to daydream are creative, better at problem-solving, and can calm themselves more easily in stressful situations.
If we are faced with danger, it immediately captures all of our attention, and we cannot focus on anything else. Things with sexual appeal will grab our attention, and the smell of good food will distract us. The reason we can’t ignore these three things is that they can be summed up under one heading: survival. These three things are what keep us on Earth, so we cannot ignore them.
As part of a recent study, scientists set up two tasting booths in a supermarket. One booth had six flavors of jam, while the other had twenty-four. Most people stopped to sample the flavors at booth #1, but booth #2 saw four times more sales. In other words, after customers familiarized themselves with the brand at booth #1 and decided to buy jam, they went to booth #2 to choose a flavor from the larger selection. It seems that, on the one hand, our brain cannot handle too many options presented to it, but on the other hand, we crave variety—most people will choose one or two jams from all the options, but still feel the need to expand their possibilities.
We’d like to believe that most of our decisions are the result of careful planning, but it turns out reality is quite different: most of the actions and choices we make are unconscious, stemming from habits we’ve developed. For example, we usually don’t consciously decide to lock the door when leaving, turn on the car radio or lights, or brush our teeth after getting out of bed—these things happen automatically when we decide to leave the house, drive somewhere, or start the day. Imagine a scenario where this automatic mechanism didn’t exist—our brain would constantly be preoccupied with trivial questions repeated daily.
The brain simply cannot perform two tasks simultaneously: try, for example, writing one thing while thinking about another, or listening to someone while thinking about something else. You’ll quickly find that one of the tasks wasn’t completed properly, or wasn’t done at all... However, we can perform a task that doesn’t require attention (like the ones mentioned in the previous point) alongside another task—for example, walking down the street while talking on the phone. Even though this kind of multitasking is possible, our focus will still be more easily distracted, and the quality of one of the tasks may suffer—for instance, you’re more likely to accidentally bump into someone or lose focus during the conversation.
