I was, um... what was I saying?

This may come as a shock to just about no one, but people are forgetful. Okay, so we all knew that, but we never really had a grasp on an average number of forgotten items in a day. Well, we can thank the National Lottery for answering that question for us.

Specifically, this was a bit of research conducted by the National Lottery in the United Kingdom, so the numbers may not hold true outside of England, but apparently at least the British forget about three things per day. And men are more likely to forget things than women, with an average of 3.5 things forgotten to 2.5.

Of course, the first culprit for people's memory lapses is ever-busier schedules, with more gadgets and more small tasks needing to get done every day. With all of those little jobs to do, it seems perfectly logical that something would be forgotten, especially if it is something that isn't part of the daily routine. There's also a chance that, by simply having so many gadgets to help us keep track of important information, we're actually curtailing our ability to remember things as much as we used to. Just look at the phenomenon with regards to phone numbers and cell phones.

Not to be cynical, though, but we noticed a little item listed in the "top 25 most forgotten" list that might point to why this was of such importance to the National Lottery. Look at the list, and specifically at number 22, where apparently people forget to buy their lottery tickets. Well, no wonder this research was done.

Just imagine what else we could study, if only it prevented people from playing the lottery.