Your Brain on Computers
The New York Times ran this article on Sunday, “Hooked on Gadgets and Paying a Mental Price.” If you work with children, youth or the undefinable “young adult” you may have experienced what feels like an epidemic of ADD/ ADHD. This article has some interesting science as it begins explaining how current technology is rewiring the human brain. Click the article title to read more. Here is a hint: borrow from the airline industry and require the youth to turn off anything with an on/off switch. You will be doing the youth group a favor as well as the helicopter parents.
“Hooked on Gadgets and Paying a Mental Price”
by Matt Richtel | June 6, 2010Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They 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 — that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.
While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.
And scientists are discovering that even after the multitasking ends, fractured thinking and lack of focus persist. In other words, this is also your brain off computers.