I have a rather good memory, short and long term, I feel. I do forget things, but not in any particular pattern. Sometimes its as simple as an item my wife shouts out last minute on a trip to the store, or the name of the actor in that movie last nite. Sometimes it may be the first 3 digits of a phone number I;ve called many times before. But overall, I feel my memory is very good, and I have used for over 20 years.
I have many friends who all use and have varying degrees of how "good" short or long term memory is. I think most of it is genetic. But in the last decade, look at how much "most" of us consume data. Internet usage and consumption has to play some sort of game with our memories and what or how much we are able to retain. I once read an article that claimed the average American consumes something like the equivalent of 180 newspapers worth of data a day. Some of this is "chosen", i.e., like reading a book, some not, billboards, pop-up ads, ads on your ps3, etc. I have to think the brain is evolving to deal with all the extra "data", maybe that's why I can't remember an actors name in a movie I watched less than 24 hours ago sometime, but why when I participated in fantasy football, I could spout off all the useless stats of the weekend. How are our minds "sifting" thru all of this data to determine what, if any is worth remembering. Did you ever lose a loved one and attempt to picture them in your mind, but not be able to. But if I gave you 4 pictures of people, I bet you'd pick them out right away. But then why couldn't I picture them in my mind a moment earlier?
Weird stuff, this memory...