How technology makes people stupid

People think that iPhone, notebook and Netflix are evidence of technological progress. To some extent, this is true. Take online search for example, moderate search is good for your brain, and there are many applications that can promote brain operation and make it active.

So how on earth does technology make our minds a mess?

1, technology has messed up your sleep

Studies have shown that the blue light emitted by smartphones, tablets and laptops can inhibit the release of melatonin at night. Melatonin is a key hormone to regulate the body's biological clock, which can keep your body in a normal routine. And blue light will interrupt this process, so that you can't follow your normal work and rest.

Insomnia has a series of negative effects on your brain. If you sleep less than seven hours or more at night, you may be in a bad mood the next day, unable to concentrate on your work, and may have memory problems-all of which make you listless.

2. You are easily distracted.

Technology makes you easily distracted, and you will watch your smartphone when talking about important projects; When you open a browser, you open multiple windows, but in fact you don't pay attention to any of them. Facts have proved that it is useless to try to accomplish multiple tasks at once, so nothing can be done well.

Teenagers in particular are more easily distracted. In 20 12, Pew Research Center surveyed more than 2,400 teachers and found that most educators felt that students were more easily distracted than before. 87% teachers think that today's digital technology makes this generation more easily distracted, and their concentration time is very short; Among these 87% people, 64% think that today's digital technology is of little help to students academically and will only make them learn more.

You can't remember much.

The status quo of technology is that no matter what you are doing, it is difficult for you to form new memories. As Nicholas Carr said in Shallow: How the Internet Poisons Your Brain, there are two types of memory: short-term working memory and long-term memory. Information must become working memory before it can become long-term memory and be stored in the brain. Any interruption of working memory, such as stopping to check emails or reading text messages in the middle of reading an article, will be erased from your brain before it becomes a long-term memory.

Tony Schwartz, a productivity expert, told the Huffington Post last year that there is a limit to how much working memory the brain can receive at a time. Receiving too much information at a time (which often happens when surfing the Internet) is like "pouring water into a glass bottle for a day, and the water on it will overflow when new water comes in".

You rely on the internet to take notes for you.

In the past, people could remember quite a lot of knowledge, such as reciting a whole novel word for word-but technology made it unnecessary for us to do so, and we had no motivation to do so. Research shows that when you know that Google or your smartphone can write down information for you, you are less likely to remember it yourself. Last year, Scientific American compared the Internet to the external hard disk of our brain, because the Internet helped us to store a huge amount of information.

You are more forgetful than before.

According to a survey of 20 13, millennials are more likely to forget what day it is and where they put their keys than people over 55. At the press conference of the investigation, Patricia Gutentag, a professional family therapist, believed that technology was one of her main culprits. She said: "This generation uses technology to deal with work and often suffers from insomnia. The result is a high degree of forgetfulness. "

You can't concentrate on what you are reading.

In the case of the same text content, reading paper books will be easier to understand than reading online. You can blame hypertext. The colorful links in these online articles will make your brain work harder, so you have little brain power to understand what you are reading. Even watching it on the screen will reduce your understanding.

You can't find your way without GPS.

20 10 a series of studies show that the hippocampus (the area of the brain related to memory and navigation) of people who rely on GPS navigation is more active than those who do not rely on GPS so much. Research shows that using spatial memory instead of relying on GPS navigation can prevent memory problems in future life.

In 2008, a study by University of London even showed that taxi drivers have more hippocampus than non-taxi drivers, which may be because taxi drivers are used to remembering their own routes instead of relying on GPS (which may not be the case for taxi drivers with smart phones).

8. You have an addict's brain.

A study of 20 12 shows that the brains of people who surf the internet excessively are similar to those of drug addicts and alcoholics.

There are abnormal white matter and gray matter in the brain of Internet addiction patients, which makes it difficult for Internet addiction patients to express their emotions and adjust their attention. Internet addicts also have a phobia of choice. Studies have shown that alcoholics and addicts have similar brain abnormalities.