Case #5: How new technology rewiring our "BRAINS"?

How new technology rewiring our "BRAINS"?

Fractured thinking might be on the rise in our digitally interconnected world of multitaskers. The old adages about all things being in balance and too much of a good thing applies to our brave new world of information overload. Our attention spans as well as the very way we think is being affected - and continues to be affected even after we turn off the computer or smartphone.

By spending so a lot time with e-mail, chat, text messaging, and other forms of communication where information is presented in short bursts but there is so a lot incoming information continuously, we are in fact training our brains to value the superficial and losing the capacity to concentrate and think deeper. Research study after research study shows that despite what people imagine about themselves, human beings grow to be worse cognitively after a life full of instantaneous communications.

Juggling the constant influx of information undermines our capability to pay attention. Bursts of information play into a primitive impulse of our human psychology to immediately respond to threats and opportunities. It echoes our distant past when we were defenseless creatures continuously searching for food while simultaneously searching out for hunters that would eat us.

This sort of simulation provokes a particular type of excitement to which our brains, addled by dopamine as well as adrenaline, become easily addicted. Yet despite the stress that all this excitement produces, we feel bored in its absence.

Thus starts a pernicious cycle whereby we find it harder and harder to concentrate while in effect desiring ever more the fact that we cannot concentrate!

Technology is literally rewiring our brains, because even after people give up all their computers and smartphones it's very tough to reset our brains. Still think you're a multitasker?

How gadgets are rewiring our brains and our behavior

I think the New York Times article on “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price” is a bit overblown. Are we really that addicted to technology?
On average we consume 12 hours of media a day and we surf 40 websites daily.
I have to admit, when I got an iPhone I became more attached to technology — at times, I slept with it in my bed (and from what I hear is not all that uncommon).
The New York Times reports:

“The technology is rewiring our brains,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and one of the world’s leading brain scientists. She and other researchers compare the lure of digital stimulation less to that of drugs and alcohol than to food and sex, which are essential but counterproductive in excess.

So fine, I did get side tracked yesterday while I was surfing the Internet and was late to a brunch. Maybe technology is so habitual that we are unaware of how much we depend on it. I must admit when I didn’t have a smart phone or Internet for 2 weeks, time went by more slowly and I read paperback books.
Now if you are wondering if you spend an unhealthy amount of time on the Internet, you might want to take a self assessment. No doubt, access to the Internet widens the range of temptations — so much so, scientists are finding that people who have a gambling problem also have a “problematic Internet” behavior.
Technology is a utility and we depend on it, so of course, it is changing our habits and our brains.
The NY Times also reports that experts think that this media overload makes us “impulsive, forgetful, and  even more narcissistic.” Oh, and I just thought that was just a part of living in New York.