April 21, 2016: Part II -- Technology and The Mind by John

   John is continuing his three part presentation on Technology and Its Affect on US,  opened his discussion with an example of a very extreme use of technology and its affect on our brain, our emotions and our cognition. He sited examples of clothing which will be able to detect when some other human is staring at us and not only that what body part they are looking at. Other clothing may detect and demonstrate either different colors or other electronic signals that show our own current emotions. There is no doubt that such dramatic equipment would change at least our social interactions if not indeed how we use our mind and how we think. This is a currently complicated extreme of technology's affect on us.

     Marshal McLuhan, a Canadian professor,  1911-1980, spent the majority of his professional career at the University of Toronto. He made the statement: "The medium is the message,", coined the words "global village" and was reported to have predicted the World Wide Web. He certainly had concerns about the affects of various media on the human thought process. In his book, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, McLuhan tries to reveal how communication technology, his specialty, (alphabetic writing, the printing press, and the electronic media) affects our cognitive organization, which in turn has profound ramifications for social organization. In the 1970s as our electronic media was gathering speed in development and expansion, some of his concerns were ignored and sort of forgotten but now with the realization of his correct predictions they are now given more credence. McLuhan felt that we shape our electronic tools and these tools shape us. Our media is massaging us constantly.      

    Nicholas Carr has written several pieces about the affect of the Internet on our brain processes and our cognition. In 2008 he wrote an article in The Atlantic entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" In the same year he wrote a book expanding on his thoughts in this article entitled The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google. Then in 2010 he expanded his thoughts even further in his book, The Shallows. In his writing Carr has raised the question whether using the Internet has lasting effects on human concentration, cognition and learning and reading capacities. He sites that Nietzsche even said that he was convinced that the invention of the typewriter affected his own ability to write and reason through things he used to be able to give deep thought to. Carr expresses great concern that use of the Internet diminishes our concentration abilities, our ability to read deeply and thoughtfully, and our ability to reason out our research and knowledge organization. Certainly the Internet tends to drive us in a rapid fragmented and somewhat shallow way. Will these characteristics lead neuroplasticity to completely change our brain function? Various experts have analyzed Carr's concerns and there are people on both side of the issue. Certainly the Net has some positives. For example it has been shown to help autistic children with their cognition and functioning. But a large number of people express concerns for negative effects. Generally neuroscientists tend to feel it is  too soon to tell what the results will be.   

     Here is a link to Carr's article in The Atlantic: 
 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/

     We are certainly drawn to technology. Indeed, the world has never been effected by such an information glut. Certainly statistical analysis of  the past decade to decade and a half use of technology is staggering. The average American consumes info electronically for 11.5 hours every day, since the advent of the Internet. The amount of information gathered by humanity since the dawn of time equals that information gathered and available since 2003. Of course we forget a lot of that information In order to combat forgetting, we need to review, review, repeat repeat, repeat. to retain the information. Seventy five percent of what you were exposed to on Monday is gone by Friday.  Some experts think that it takes an hour or so for memories to become fixed and consolidated. Any disruption in the beginning of that hour of memory consolidation disrupts the memory formation. . Distraction is the enemy of learning. Key to lasting memory is deep attention and deep concentration. A lot of our memories go into our short term memory but if not allowed to consolidate into long term memory, does that change who we are? It is our long term memory that defines who we are and contributes to our own narrative story and therefore our cognition and our reaction to our experiences. Comments from our group suggested that we may be able to improve our memory retention by being present 'in the moment'  during the experience  to better retain the memory of that experience. We all know that our memories of emotionally charged experiences whether positive or negative are better retained.

     Another concern is the affects of the Internet and other forms of electronic media on our emotions and on our human relationships. Of course, the dating sites immediately come to mind. As a specific example, people are logging into a app of online dating "Tender" 11 times a day. Women on the average spend 8.5 minutes swiping left and right during a single session. Men spend on the average 7.2 minutes per session. These often add up to 90 minutes a day doing this. Probably spending time on the dating sites and getting responses there cause the release of dopamine, producing a dopamine high. But are these the types of human interactions that we want to promote? And what will be the long term affect for this specific use of the Internet. 

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." from Maya Angelou, Professor of English Literature Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC