Personalized spaced-repetition 'mental gym' app that auto-generates flashcards

Do you want to hack your brain to remember more? Here's how you can. Wouldn't it be great if we could turn off the forgetting feature (bug?) in our brains? Especially at important times, e.g. when learning a language. Well, the good news is you can. But is it really a bug? In 1880, Ebbinghaus ran experiments on memory to figure out why we forget things. He created The Forgetting Curve. It shows how memory drops sharply at first but then levels off. We forget the most stuff right after learning. New info is halved in just days if we don't do something with it. Not too surprising! If we don't need the info, why should our brains have evolved to keep it anyway? But sometimes we know better... And we can turn off that evolutionary "benefit" of forgetting stuff. Stick with me, as this may sound weird... But let's look at people with big biceps for the answer. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩. You don't need big biceps – you don't get them from going to work, cooking dinner or taking out the trash. Unless you're producing A LOT of trash. You get big biceps by taking smaller ones to the gym and putting artificial strain on them until the body adapts. You hack the body into believing it needs them. And it works. We can do the same with our brains! Flashcards are a popular tools, but why do they work? They combine two things to strengthen the neural connections in our brains. First, flash cards challenge us to recall information we've previously seen. This is called Active Recall. The act of trying to remember is exactly what makes the memory stronger. Right or wrong? Doesn't matter. Just that you tried to recall. In 1602, the famous butcher, Francis Bacon, wrote: "Hence if you read a piece of text through twenty times, you will not learn it by heart so easily as if you read it ten times while attempting to recite it from time to time and consulting the text when your memory fails." 𝘠𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵... 𝘔𝘳 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳. 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦! The second thing flashcards do is space out these active recall sessions. By spacing out our attempts to recall the information, the information gradually gets promoted into our long-term memory. Effectively the brain starts to see there's a a need to keep it. So, just like biceps, we take our brain to a mental gym and we do reps. We artificially ask it to recall things we want to keep, and eventually the brain adapts, and those things become stronger memories. The best bit? If you combine active recall with spaced repetition, you can keep anything in your head long-term. It's not a shortcut, and it takes time, but it works. 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘴𝘬 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥... O𝘩... 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦! 𝘏𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥! Happy brain hacking.