Expand Your Mind: Effects of a Wired Brain
by Miki Saxon
I am a digital dinosaur.
I don’t Tweet; I don’t do Facebook; I don’t own a cell phone; I refuse all the invitations to join yet another 2.0 platform; I’m mostly inactive on LinkedIn, not and open networker and wonder, when I think of it at all, how to politely disconnect from the people whose invitations I accepted before I knew better;
I spend my time working on Option Sanity, the new product my company is launching; I write; I spend time with friends, in person and on the phone; I read, not “worthwhile” or business books, but for pure pleasure; I play in the dirt in my garden, which, after seven years, is actually looking good to me; I cherish my brain.
I know many people who are wired; who can’t imagine life without their smartphone; who have hundreds, if not thousands of friends; who totally freak out at the idea of not being connected 24/7.
What about their brains? Is the cumulative effect of all that information and connectivity positive or negative?
A series called in the New York Times this week offers a look at much of the brain research being done on this subject and it’s not a pretty site.
The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In (This one really horrified me—the mother, not the kid.)
The boy, who Ms. Im estimates was about 2 1/2 years old, made repeated attempts to talk to his mother, but she wouldn’t look up from her BlackBerry. “He’s like: ‘Mama? Mama? Mama?’ ” Ms. Im recalled. “And then he starts tapping her leg. And she goes: ‘Just wait a second. Just wait a second.’ ”
Finally, he was so frustrated, Ms. Im said, that “he goes, ‘Ahhh!’ and tries to bite her leg.”
Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price
They [scientists] say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.
These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement — a dopamine squirt — that researchers say can be addictive.
An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness
Some experts believe excessive use of the Internet, cell phones and other technologies can cause us to become more impatient, impulsive, forgetful and even more narcissistic.
More Americans Sense a Downside to an Always Plugged-In Existence
Younger people are particularly affected: almost 30 percent of those under 45 said the use of these devices made it harder to focus, while less than 10 percent of older users agreed. … One in seven married respondents said the use of these devices was causing them to see less of their spouses. And 1 in 10 said they spent less time with their children under 18.
And if the articles aren’t enough to make you rethink your wired state, here is a review of Nicholas Carr’s new book ‘The Shallows’: Is the Net Fostering Stupidity?
Americans now spend 8.5 hours a day frenetically interacting with their PCs, TVs, or, increasingly, the smartphones that follow them everywhere. In the process, writes Carr, we are reverting to our roots as data processors. “What we’re experiencing is, in a metaphorical sense, a reversal of the early trajectory of civilization: We are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest.”
It would be unfair not to offer up a bit of hope with all this.
Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration
Or you can recognize your brain’s finite capacity for processing information, accentuate the positive and achieve the satisfactions of what Winifred Gallagher, author of “Rapt,” a guide to the science of paying attention, calls the focused life.
It’s a lot of reading on a summer weekend, but the information will impact you and your kids for the rest of your lives—whether you accept all of it or just a tiny bit.
Darn! I knew I forgot one link. It’s in one of the articles, but here it is directly.
Test How Fast You Juggle Tasks
- Test Your Focus
- Test How Fast You Juggle Tasks
Image credit: pedroCarvalho on flickr
June 12th, 2010 at 8:26 am
Very interesting post. If all you do is social media, you are totally right…it’ll wreck your brain.
But if you use it in conjunction with other forms of learning/media, I believe it can actually *help* your thinking.
Lots to read this weekend. Thanks Miki!
June 12th, 2010 at 8:43 am
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Phil Gerbyshak, Karin H (=Hermans). Karin H (=Hermans) said: RT @PhilGerb: Social media hurts your brain? Oh yes it does, according to this article and links http://bit.ly/bsVIos #in […]
June 12th, 2010 at 10:14 am
What you say is true, Phil, but moderation doesn’t seem to be these days. It also seems that fewer people are comfortable enough with themselves to endure, let alone enjoy, silence. Additionally, constant connection and absorption in the minutiae of other people lives eliminates the need to learn/know oneself—an often uncomfortable and prolonged process.