I found a great book, The Art of Making Memories, at a Free Little Library I pass on one of my walking routes. It’s by Meik Wiking, a happiness expert. In one section of the book, he discusses the “doorway effect.” You know, those times you walk into a room and completely forget why you went there in the first place. It’s not that we’re getting older, or are having a dumb moment, it’s our brain doing what our brains do. We often go on autopilot and in doing so, once we enter another room, it interrupts our thinking and switches us over to what we normally do in said rooms.
Wiking says, “the idea is that the act of walking through the doorway makes the brain believe that a new scene has begun and that there is no need for memories from the old scene.” It’s good to know there’s a real name for this and there isn’t anything wrong with me. I’ve relayed this random tidbit of information to several people and they have sighed with relief. “So it’s not me!” No, it’s not you.
Now I’m wondering if the same phenomenon applies online. Surely it does. With a plethora of tabs open in my browser, I go to one and forget what I intended to do or search. Anyone else have that problem? Or I get on my phone to open a certain app, swipe through a page, and forget “where” I’m going. Sigh… Seems to me this also happens with online environments. My brain is just doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s not me.