The Death of Contemplation
A very persuasive argument in reply to my question there Steve, but I have another few points to make regarding the development of computer interfacing and its effects on human development. Ofcom recently found that Britons spend an average of seven hours a day interacting with some form of media (television, computer, mobile phone etc.) and that smart phones especially are an expanding fixture of an increasing number of our lives (for “smart phone” read “mobile computer”). In fact, television accounted for a relatively small proportion of this time, especially within the 16-to-24-year-old age groups (i.e. the group that can be classed as the future of this country). The dominant media choice for this group is mobiles and computers, and of this group, two-thirds were found to be multitasking by operating up to two digital tasks at once.
Academics in the field are beginning to associate such fixation with digital interfacing as tantamount to an addiction (ever found yourself constantly checking email or updates on your phone?), and a development of a kind of twitchy anxiety at the need to remain “plugged in” to this ever-increasing, constantly updated cyber world of information and entertainment. Moreover, it is becoming obvious to many in the medical field that this relatively new form of digital interfacing has shown to be responsible for effectively rewiring the human brain to become accustomed to this constant flow of data and information nuggets in their briefest form. The brain, as you know, is an organ operated electrically as well as chemically and people who suffer brain damage in some form of accident can often benefit from their brain’s capacity to rewire the neural highway to bypass any dead or damaged synapses in order to increase its functioning capacity (this is termed neuro-plasticity). If the road is blocked the brain creates a diversion around the blockage so the traffic can keep moving. If you think of it this way, then the physical rewiring of the brain to accommodate this new development of data flow and information gathering can have potentially negative effects on human development, ironically depriving the human race of the very talents that drove our journey from caves to PC terminals.
The negative effects I am citing here are the oft-quoted effects of “dumbing down”, or to put it another way, the rewiring of our brains and the way we interpret news and information will, it has been said, become biased towards the quick-fix soundbite, the three-minute YouTube video and the eventual inability (or desire) to study in-depth analysis of any given event, the wish to invest days of time on a large novel or the enjoyment of watching a three-act play. In short, the very act of contemplation and deep thinking may be a trait (and a very human trait) that becomes lost to future generations, like the ancient rite of some long-dead pagan religion.
In his book, “The Shallows” author Nicholas Carr writes:
“If, knowing what we know today about the brain’s plasticity, you were to set out to invent a medium that would rewire our mental circuits as quickly and thoroughly as possible, you would probably end up designing something that looks and works a lot like the internet.”
The timescale for this “redesign” of the human brain is not as long as some may think. In 2008 at UCLA, psychiatrists, led by Dr. Gary Small, researched the effects of digital interfacing on the human brain by obtaining two groups made up of 12 experienced web users and 12 digital newcomers. These groups used Google whilst their brains were scanned. The results, published under the (humorous, I think) title Your Brain On Google pointed up a key initial difference between the two groups. In an area of the brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which deals with short-term memory and decision-making, the newcomers showed hardly any activity, whereas the web veterans displayed plenty of activity in this area of the brain scan. Six days later, after the novices had been asked to spend just one hour a day online, the two groups’ brains were re-scanned. The activity in the same area of the brain was now very nearly identical. Five hours of digital interface had effectively been enough to begin to rewire the brain.
Dr. Small also cites the digital revolution as being a central cause for the decline of human-contact skills in younger people. This can be seen in the lack of maintaining eye contact during conversations and the increasing inability to read non-verbal cues (or body language) when socializing within a group. He fears texting and instant email are also dampening our ability to be creative and think outside the box by ourselves because we are constantly vetting our thoughts and ideas through instant and regular contact with friends and peers. The effect of digital multitasking is not an increased skill in coordination (as previously cited) but a tendency to do things faster but, crucially, sloppier and without due consideration. Indeed, this is a problem that big US corporations like the engineering company Boeing are seeking to address in their new young apprentices.
The effect of the 24-hour news, the laptop, the mobile phone; the constant interference of digital media and interface in our modern consumer lives, can have wonderful, information-sharing benefits, where an experienced doctor might instruct a novice surgeon a thousand miles away, and guide him through a step-by-step procedure to repair a damaged artery via a satellite computer link. But the rewiring of the brain as a result of all this might be to our detriment. As Carr states it in his book, “We are welcoming the frenziedness into our souls” and as the years go by and we routinely ping-pong from blog to website to Twitter in a matter of minutes, there shall be no-one sitting somewhere on a melancholy beach, watching as the sun slowly goes down. The horizon turning from yellow, to orange and finally to blood red, as day turns to night.
