Chasing the elusive numbers Premium

Struggle to remember own numbers can be anxiety-inducing. Digital revolution has made us numbers-fatigued, dependent on stored numbers on phones. Mnemonic tricks to memorise numbers not helping. Need to chant important numbers like multiplication tables as kids. Use it or lose it: long-distance vision blurred if nothing to view. Write out contact numbers of family members & carry it around. Paper can save the day.

I read about a standard tactic that the police employ to catch vehicle thieves. A constable hails down a vehicle and asks the driver to tell its registration number. If the driver is the owner, he should be able to readily tell the number. If he is driving a stolen vehicle, it would not have occurred to him to memorise its number. That is a clever tactic, I thought, and laughed at its ingenuity. After I was done laughing, I realised that I too could not readily recall my own vehicles’ numbers. Had a policeman stopped me similarly, I could have been in trouble. My memory is like a sieve, so of late I have taken to periodically self-check if I can recall my own vehicles’ numbers.

The numbers conundrum does not end there. There are occasions when an acquaintance asks for your mobile number. And you realise that you have forgotten your number. It happens rarely (ha, ha, that’s a lie), but when it happens, it immediately raises the suspicion about the ownership of the phone you are holding. There are, of course, methods to find out your own number from your phone, but you would look pretty foolish if you start going through that process in front of another person who wants to know your number. So you opt for the easiest move and give him a missed call. This is a pretty lame solution, but it saves the day.

The struggle to remember your own number can be anxiety-inducing. That is because there has been no occasion for you to have called your own number from another line. If you have not been filling any application forms recently where your mobile number has to be mentioned, then there is no reason why you should remember your own number. That should be the headache of whoever wants to call you up — that has been your attitude till this moment. And if you are a senior citizen grappling with the frequent problem of remembering why you walked into any of the rooms in your own house, then remembering your own phone number is just an additional hassle.

Post the digital revolution, our minds are numbers-fatigued with user IDs, login passwords, transaction passwords, and PINs (which periodically need to be changed and updated), and we are too dependent on the stored numbers on our mobile phone to save the day for us. Not many of us can remember the phone numbers of our own family members without referring to the mobile phone. You hear about mnemonic tricks to memorise numbers, but that has not helped much. Those of us who are numbers averse, hampered by our spectacular numerical disability, may need to routinely chant the important numbers by rote, like we did the multiplication tables, as children.

Use it or lose it. They say anyone emerging from solitary confinement will find his or her long-distance vision blurred. Having had nothing to view at a distance, the eye loses its ability to focus on objects at a long distance. Maybe, that is what is happening to your lazy and unused memory muscles dependent on readily available information on your phone.

There may come a day when you lose your phone and you are stranded in some place and you need to call your family members or friends. Even if someone offers his phone, you will not know which number to call. So it may be a good exercise to write out at least the contact numbers of immediate family members and carry it around. Or email your contact list to yourself for retrieval when needed — provided you remember your email password. But that is another story.

Better write it down and carry it with you. Nothing like paper to save the day.