Technology and the Brain

[ysabetwordsmith]

I found this article interesting, but I have mixed feelings. I can understand a certain amount of concern about too much exposure to technology, but ...

Scientists Fear Technology May Be Rewiring Our Brains

When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social

Comments

[cieldumort]

I think that they have a point. BUT, not everyone needs and/or wants to be a social butterfly, either. Some people are made better politicians by reading few, if any, books. Other people don't want to become better politicians.

I mostly prefer company of genuinely intelligent people... even if they are supremely more intelligent than I am, provided my ego doesn't get in the way and their own isn't too big for god...

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

I prefer the company of intelligent people for practical reasons: 1) Average people tend to bore and frustrate me. 2) I tend to scare and confuse them. There's nothing wrong with either of us; we're just not very compatible. The bandwidth shear is miserable for everyone.

And that's why I do so much of my socializing online, because I live in a place where intelligence is actively discouraged. This is not new; I grew up here with it. Nor is it new for people incompatible with their nearby associates to seek other company, including their own.

In social interaction, you have to consider not just the social skills of one person, but the nature of the people around them. Sometimes you're in an environment where everyone hates you for no fault of your own. Sometimes the people around you aren't bad, but they aren't suitable friend material either. It's good to have options from which one can choose.

Re: Thoughts

[cieldumort]

Isn't a terribly sad fact of American society that intelligence, generally, seems to be discouraged?

I don't think it's just my imagination, or personal perspective.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

That has certainly contributed enormously to the benighted situation we're in now.

[ayoub]

I'd say that's preposterous...

[green_knight]

We're still explosed to a lot of facial expressions and body language - our culture has become immensely visual, and with more and more people - thanks to Youtube - watching at least clips in languages they do not speak, I really don't see this as a skill that can be lost any time soon. Thoroughout the history of humanity, a lot of people used to work lonely jobs, or jobs where they'd only see the same people over and over again, wherewas we have to go out and interact with strangers every time we go to the shop, and we have to negotiate with them in customer-oriented positions,of which there are many

[browngirl]

As for the social interaction side, for me the people I meet online are just as real as the ones I meet in person. It's harder to have a cup of tea together, but all the other interaction stuff hasn't gone away.

I was about to say this, but you said it far better. *nods*

This does sound just like the anti-book propaganda I was also subjected to. What will they say next, that too much Internet shrinks the gonads, like they used to in Victorian times?

OTOH, I should try to find the study and evaluate its methodology for myself before I snark too much about it. But it does seem to me that its logic might rely on an appeal to nature; because we change as our technology changes, and thus are not the same as our previous 'natural' state, doesn't necessarily mean the change is deleterious.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Also consider the type of body language a person is exposed to. If you're surrounded by people who dislike you, that's not going to yield much positive interaction: mostly what you learn is which facial expressions go with insults and incipient violence. That's useful for survival, but I think that safe solitude is preferable to unsafe socializing. Interestingly, suicide statistics point both ways: many people commit suicide because they are tormented to death, and many do it out of sheer loneliness.

In terms of social interaction, I find it often easier and more rewarding online than in person. I'd like to have close relationships close by, but it isn't always possible. It took years to build a local community year, and it's a massive amount of work. The people who are most important in my life mostly live several states away, with the exception of a few family members and a few local friends. The net's how I keep in touch with most of them

Re: Thoughts

[green_knight]

As someone who was bullied in school, I have to admit that I learnt very little social skills in that environment - people did not want to socialise with me. (I moved up a year, and not only did I find it easier to relate to people in my new year, the rest of the school realised that my old year was pretty antisocial. Hey ho, it wasn't my fault after all.

But I was thinking about how many people in the history of humanity have been isolated to lesser or greater degrees, and I think that if anything, we have *more* social contacts than humanity has ever had. We certainly see a greater range of faces and behaviours; and for the most part, we're able to learn how to relate to them.

Online allows us to seek out the kinds of people we want to relate to. I love it.

[rippatton]

"Some scientists think the wired world may be changing the way we read, learn and interact with each other

[dulcinbradbury]

That *is* being phased out. The one problem with phasing it out entirely? We risk losing access to our history. While working at a state archive, I read letters from the Revolutionary War period. I could only do this *because* I'd learned cursive. As it passes out of schools, kids not only lose the ability to write in cursive, but, the ability to read it as well.

[haikujaguar]

This is a good point.

[rippatton]

I see your point. But another aspect of the information age is that people have to specialize in an area of education to a greater degree than we have ever have had to before. So we teach cursive to students specializing in art and history, not to every nine-year-old. Or we let children choose and some will want to learn it, while others will not.

I think people tend to get sentimental about things like this. I have letters written by my mom in her beautiful cursive handwriting. She died when I was thirteen and I treasure those letters and am so thankful I can read them. But I'm not sure that nostalgia should dictate educational content.

[xiphias]

I'm willing to bet that many people nowadays are worse at group hunting of Pleoscine megafauna, too! For many of us, technology has rewired our brains away from detecting spoor track and judging migration patters of large herd animals!

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I regret the diminishment of hunting skills, actually.