20. People Remember Only 4 Items at Once

People Remember Only 4 Items at Once

        People's memory capacity was once thought to be able to keep around 7 things at once in short term memory, but since then It was proven the golden number is actually 4. But fear not! There are methods to remembering more! One of the most common ways to remember more than 5 things (words/numbers) is called "Chunking." By using chunking, you break down the information into sections, so instead of memorizing a string of ten  numbers (9435553432), you can memorize 3 sections of 3 and 4 words (943-555-3432). Using this is also a great way to commit things to long term memory.