Two weeks ago, we experienced the warmest March on record. Temperatures rose as if it was already the middle of June, breaking decades of climate data and raising concerns about long-term environmental side effects. People tweeted it, shared it on social media and talked about it in their daily conversations. And then it disappeared almost as quickly as Sonic the Hedgehog. This pattern isn’t unusual for Generation Z. We tend to forget things much more quickly than our parents and grandparents. It’s likely a normal thing that most people experience in our generation.
The short collective memory makes it easier for misinformation to spread and easier for groups, especially political ones, to avoid accountability simply by waiting for more chaos. The problem is not that we don’t care about recent events and impactful situations, such as the major decisions being made by the Trump administration; it’s just the fact that we only care until it’s trending and scrolling under our thumbs.
Today, most news events last only a few days. It’s like we are watching Instagram stories, where it generates a short reaction and then vanishes from all our memories after 24 hours. Because life moves on, as always. Reactions of outrage also seem almost like a performance rather than heartfelt pressure to advocate for the right thing in a given situation.
As if people do it for the plot, outrages feel fake when people post about it, make it trendy, spark conversations and then collectively decide to let it rot in the past as something new pops up on the feed. The social media algorithm aids in the short collective memory of the human mind, encouraging us to move on before anything actually changes and the case is closed.
This short-lived memory changes how we understand information as well. Instead of treating current events as something that is ongoing, we treat them as a start and an endpoint in one. Once it leaves the top trends chart, it leaves our memories and attention too. It is a similar concept to “out of sight, out of mind,” even when the issue itself is ongoing and more episodes are yet to come.
And this is what helps people in politics nowadays. Our generation has fallen so behind in keeping tabs on current affairs that politicians are taking advantage of it. So much is going on today that it is also almost impossible to keep track of all the information being thrown at us, which is where politicians see a loophole to slip in their personal agendas. They think that once they take an action that might cause outrage, all they have to do is handle it for a few days and then wait for time to pass so that other people can forget and move on. When records eventually come out, the urgency that once surrounded the issue comes back again, just like the Epstein files.
This also affects activism, which mainly relies on continuity. If a matter loses its significance on social media, people tend to stop caring and forget it ever happened. The strikes and walks that advocate for justice and equality become past and social movements don’t succeed due to a lack of demand for change. Then a new week arrives, the topics of trends change and the most recent, still ongoing, advocacy run is put to rest from public attention.
Some might argue that this brevity of the human mind is necessary for moving forward. It allows society to stay optimistic, on trend and learn something new everyday. To a certain extent, this is true. But there is also a difference between moving forward and skipping closure. Imagine trying to finish a group project where everyone agrees to ignore the unfinished slides. The project will continue, but it wouldn’t be complete nor improved. Real progress relies on people to remember what is unfinished and what still needs to be worked on so that improvements can occur and society can move forward together.
Therefore, collective memory isn’t just about the past. It is also what will shape the future as Gen Z rises as the next world leaders. When attention disappears too quickly, there is a high chance that politicians take advantage to complete tyrannical motives, with outlast consequences and misinformation spreading globally.
If changes and advancements are to be made, we need to stay engaged on the current episodes a little longer than the 24-hour story expiration time. Because when accountability leaves, the same problems will keep finding their way back into headlines we just finished forgetting.
