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How the City Hurts Your Brain
Hugh Pickens writes "The city has always been an engine of intellectual life and the 'concentration of social interactions' is largely responsible for urban creativity and innovation. But now scientists are finding that being in an urban environment impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory and suffers from reduced self-control. 'The mind is a limited machine,' says psychologist Marc Berman. 'And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations.' Consider everything your brain has to keep track of as you walk down a busy city street. A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to redirect our attention constantly so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things. This sort of controlled perception — we are telling the mind what to pay attention to — takes energy and effort. Natural settings don't require the same amount of cognitive effort. A study at the University of Michigan found memory performance and attention spans improved by 20 percent after people spent an hour interacting with nature. 'It's not an accident that Central Park is in the middle of Manhattan,' says Berman. 'They needed to put a park there.'"
Just head to Manhattan and look at the people around you. Everyone is constantly glancing around at everything. It's not just the tourists either--very nearly every single person is constantly shifting his gaze from point to point like a coked out monkey with ADD. It's one of the things that I hate about New York.
Isn't this similar to the report a while back saying that our brains are becoming affected by google browsing - information overload if it arrives in huge chunks is difficult to assimilate. Imagine you are on a plane for 10 hours - the white noise of the engine, and the bland colours - then you are off the plane, into the airport, a bustling place - you are tired, the airport is busy, and you feel overwhelmed.
I'm feeling very ambivalent about this study. Sure, walking down a busy street requires concentration. And? If you look at it this way, it's actively improving your concentration.
The truth is that most people work in office buildings that are not that busy, and they only spend a tiny fraction of their day in a busy and distracting environment. Honestly, this sounds like a study that was trying to find evidence that supports a predetermined conclusion.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
This is not only incorrect, but it is also not the point of the original article. First of all, I will address your specific statements. Being in the wilderness is not less stressful than being in civilization. That flies in the face of our entire human history. You, a modern human, only enjoy the wilderness now as a convenience brought to you by the comforts of modern technology. Where and how do you get your food, shelter, water, safety? It is illogical to compare being run over in the street with some romanticized notion of idyllic nature, because you have been far removed from primary threats to existence such as disease, predation, exposure, and starvation.
Second, the point of the article is that urban environments are cognitively distracting compared to a natural setting. That may be true but it is also pointless. What is the base level of cognitive ability? Did the study compare attention and mental focus for individuals who are simply sitting comfortably in their home doing nothing? It stands to reason that if there is a correlation between environment and cognition, the most safe and peaceful environment would provide the best result. But I object to this kind of weakly disguised propaganda that continues to romanticize and idealize the superiority of "nature." Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being outdoors. But I have no illusions that my ability to enjoy being outdoors is ENTIRELY predicated upon the fact that my safety and well-being is facilitated by the comforts of modern human civilization and technology.
I accept the fact that I don't have the ability to be tossed into the wild and survive. I don't need to. Moreover, I don't WANT to. Why would I want to spend most of my day worrying about where my next meal is going to come from, or providing for basic safety? That is how we all lived thousands of years ago, and that is how many people in underdeveloped countries continue to live today. There is a very good reason why humans discovered the benefits of civilization long ago. The notion that civilization is evil and we should embrace nature and return to a nomadic life is yet another insult to those who live in squalor and desperation among us.
Yes it does. The ancient equivalent of a city would be on the veldt surrounded by predators. You are constantly on edge looking for the flash of colour which could mean you're on the menu. Your ears are straining to hear the danger signals through the constant noise. Constant exposure to such stress is very wearing and can result in various nervous malfunctions and lead to physical manifestations. Ever heard of hypertension ?
I recently (6 months ago) gave up driving a truck (18 wheeler for the US residents) because although the physical act of driving was easy, the mental stress of being abused by just about everybody else on the road led to me being pissed off the whole time. Once you get into that condition, you need serious training in Buddhism to learn to relax. I haven't had the training, and I still can't drive (even a car) without getting stressed almost immediately, and it has even affected me as a pedestrian. All this is happening to a person who in 2001/2002 drove across the US 3 times (FL -> WA, WA -> FL, FL -> CA) in a month and a half for fun, then drove almost all the way around Australia, then travelled all the way round NZ by bus. Hint: it's not the driving or travelling.
The human mind can't stand up to being attacked all the time. My condition is starting to become agoraphobic as it is impossible to go anywhere without encountering traffic. I recently spent time in Scotland, well away from large population centres, and it was like a large dose of valium. I was completely relaxed within a day or so. Unfortunately I still have to earn a living so moving there permanently isn't an option right now. And not having worked for 6 months means my savings are almost exhausted and my options are dwindling to zero.
Just because you don't notice the effect, it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It is cumulative and one day it will hit you hard. Your brain gets used to the default state of mind being stress, and suddenly one day it gets stuck there. Very hard to get back from, and very hard to withstand real stress when it occurs, because you have so little energy left in reserve.
For me, it's the opposite. I find it easier to be productive at work, since there are fewer distractions.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
If the noise of your coworkers is too distracting, turn up the AC. More noise (the "white" and continuous type) is recommended when specific and transient noises are distracting. But I guess the noise of the hundreds of PCs would help with that.
You just got troll'd!
I read this article two people were having a conference call with a speakerphone about 8 feet from me. It sucked, and I could barely focus on this article, let alone the technical article that I need to read and understand to do my job.
Distractions are bad.
Your arguments reeks of truthiness but turns out to not be true. It turns out that relaxing your mind and focusing on single tasks promotes good health and positive mood.
This has been scientifically demonstrated (The quick summary of the above link, for those too lazy to dig through the reference is that researchers found that a group of people receiving some mindfullness mediation training showed improvements in mood and in immune response compared to a control group.)
If I may spin the article in this context, it seems that having a quiet mind is a very, very good thing, and that quiet, natural settings are more conducive to quiet minds that busy urban environments.
There are more dangerous animals that would hunt and kill you in the middle of New York city than any wild area in the world.
Actually, NYC has less murder to population ratio than even most rural areas these days.
If you were talking about Detroit, Camdem, or Philadelhia...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Actually, those two lines were only shut down in a single area, and very briefly while new parts were installed. The rest of the system was operational, and there were no stations where service was shut down -- the stations in the area where those lines were shut down were being serviced by other subway lines. The system was robust enough to allow for a very quick reroute of trains from West 4 street (three stations north of the fire) to Jay street (two stations south of the fire). Not only that, but the relay room that was destroyed by the fire controlled only two of the four tracks to that station (Chambers St./World Trade Center), and the other two tracks, which were used for relaying the third line that services that station (and terminates there) remained operational because they were controlled by another relay room.
Around the same period, the MTA attempted to bring the first phase of the new, computerized central control system online; this was the radio coordination system, which is currently running equipment that was installed in the 1960s. The computerized system crashed when three simultaneous emergency calls were made -- a typical situation in a system with more than 400 stations and a hundred or so trains in operation at any given time -- and communication in the entire system was shut down while they reactivated the old system. Imagine, in a few years, if a fire occurs in the control center -- the entire system would be out of order until the older control rooms were unlocked and reactivated. As a case in point, there was a fire in a control room in the 1980s, much more serious than a relay room like the one at Chambers St., and a service along one of the subway lines was shut down until control could be transferred to other locations (this was a complex move at that time). No other lines were affected by the fire, because the other control rooms operated completely independently, from an electronic perspective (they are coordinated by phone).
People just assume that technology from the 1920-30s, which runs the majority of the system, must in inadequate and that upgrading it will make the transit system better. Experience shows that this is simply not true. The 1930s vacuum tube relay equipment, which is controlled with electromechanical lever machines, is remarkably reliable, and gets the job done just fine. The only real deficiency is that there is no electronic method for tracking multiple lines on a single segment of track, but this is made up for through a system of buttons installed at major station stops, which allow train operators to indicate their route to a control room when it is necessary to do so (as it is at points where lines are separated and sent down different tracks). In some cases, even that is overkill, because the control room sits at the exact point where trains stop. Computerization offers little advantage beyond more accurate accounting and schedule measurements.
I am not against the idea of more modern equipment. It is certainly the case that a computer could calculate the placement of trains in maintenance yards more efficiently than a human can, or even the placement of trains on relay tracks at locations where several lines are terminated. The current plan, however, is deeply flawed in that it seeks to centralize everything and leave the old system locked up for emergencies. Central command systems might work well on smaller systems like Chicago or Boston, but given the enormous size of the NYC transit system, it seems severely misguided; no surprise, though, since the MTA has not made many good decisions over the past few years.
Palm trees and 8
I am a city person, and I wholly agree with the study (personally). But then again I think some degree of silence and solitude are necessary for the intellectual life (actually for focus, with is necessary for the intellectual life).
I grew up in the city, but had the good fortune of going to college in the boonies, and I could tell the difference. A 20 minute hike would put you in the woods, completely away from anyone. There were no distractions. I could actually sit and read (in a deep way, not in the leisurely way) for hours without anyone talking to me ("what are you reading" is the most damnable question ever, btw).
Part of this was because the lack of people, cars, etc... And part of it was due to the change in context. In the city we have constant reminders of our bust life, escaping the city escapes this context.
It always is nice to get out of the range of the nearest cell-tower, off the roads, and away from the mindless chatter of others.
For some reason I feel that the people who are against this study are the typical Americans who are frightened of silence since it allows introspection. Most people in cities, IMHO, exist largly as interactions, and are frightened on some level of what remains (if anything) when there is no more superfluous stimulus.
Which brings me too; why the hell is there canned music EVERYWHERE in cities?
Yes, I'm a slightly pissy misanthrope, so this might have something to do with it. And yes, I grew up in the 5th largest metropolitan area in the US, so I'm not a country boy.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey