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Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime
siliconbits writes with an excerpt from NY Times: "Technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas."
Why do you think I run Windows? ::rimshot::
Living With a Nerd
didn't read.
wha'? where am i?
I lay down on the couch several times a day for 10 to 30 minutes and close my eyes, it does not matter if I fall asleep or not, just the act of closing my eyes and letting my mind rest does wonders for recharging my energy levels and clearing my mind of noise & clutter.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
This is the very reason I don't have a cell phone* and haven't used an instant messenger in years. It is also the same reason that I only check personal email at most once a day (They call it mail for a reason). If I'm at home or the office than the land line works very well - if I'm not there than I'm busy anyway.
*People ask how can you manage that - I tell them it's a little secret called forethought or planning.
NPR had a long thing on this the other day. Supposedly it kills our attention span. Or something, tl;dl.
THL phish sticks
This explains a lot. I ran a linux system during my youth, which explains why my memory is completely shot! No downtime at all :(
Did Slashdot just advise us to cut back on Slashdot?
if it wasn't for http://xkcd.com/386/.
Indeed, I learned this while studying for my thesys.
How I proceed: Before gym, I read something very deep and complex. Just 1 sentence or equation. Then I would do my regular exercises, sometimes wondering what I read, implications and etc.
It must have something about internal brain/body chemistry, but the union is productive and healthy.
I dont use iStuff in the process, since today Im a bit sensitive to media overloads (images/sounds).
Also, I discovered that I already lost sensibility to sounds. I recommend everybody to avoid too loud music, since our life expectation is high and I dont intend to be a deaf old guy at 100 yr old.
[Zoidberg] Look I'm contributing!
[Prof] Good news everyone! This news must come as NO surprise at all so it might surprise that this is news!
[Fry] I'm confused, should I be surprised I'm not surprised?
[Prof] Stop taking up my brain uptime, you fool!! And stop talking in this strangly slightly annoying yet entertaining stereotypical voice.
I really value my exercise time for this 'down time.' I can't stand running with headphones because I can't get lost in the moment. Going out for a nice long run (or a walk) on Sunday morning when you have a problem to mull over is just about the greatest way to find some insight and a new angle on it. I've composed term papers and had some wonderful insights into my life and relationships while on runs.
As I get older, I also find that I need to turn off more and more distractions if I really want to get anything serious done. I close the web browser, turn off the IM and silence the phone (I'd turn it off, but it takes so freaking long to reboot, it's obnoxious). I remember a time in my youth that I'd have 12 things going on at once, watching TV, playing video games and maybe even music running somewhere. I think I was being productive, but looking back, I question that. Perhaps my abilities to 'multi-task' have diminished as I've aged, but I think that I've just become more adept at recognizing shoddy work. What about you all? Have you fond that as you get older, you need more quite time to think than you did when you were younger? Do little distractions like email and IMs really cut into your productivity?
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
I don't know about watching visuals, but I can get into a similar meditative state to jogging when I listen to music. Good for problem solving.
You can also do this kind of thing while driving. So much so that you can often forget the details of how you got somewhere.
I suspect, for me, any tech that demands focused consciousness may be a downside, but many forms of tech can let you get your daydreaming walk in the forest time.
Oh boy! Another flavor of the month study. Who does these things, who is paying them, and what are their motivations? I think these kind of studies/reports are more responsible for the intrusion of my brains downtime than anything else as I consider the id10ts that make them. Time for some aspirin...
i haz to haff teh internets all day.
I read the article on the New York Times yesterday, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately in general, and I've come across some pretty interesting stuff. For instance, its pretty obvious that computers give off a lot of blue light. Apparently someone decided that blue LEDs meant high tech and so devices get fitted with them all over the place. Blue light in particular is linked to suppression of melatonin(source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11487664). Particularly low levels of melatonin have been observed in patients with various degrees of ASD, including slashdot's favourite asperger's (source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17505466).
So, my contention is that the "rise in autism" that seems to be so prevalent these days is probably a result of children basically being deprived of proper darkness, being surrounded by light from computers, tv, video games, etc. I've started taking melatonin supplements as since I got back into IT work about two years ago and spending much more time on computers, I've been sleeping a lot less and feeling generally less sociable. My memory has gotten shot, etc. Could just be that I'm getting older, but I'm only 26... I'm not that old. When I get a break away from computers, take some time out to sleep, and get outside in the woods then I can generally shake the effects off in a day or so, but when I was a kid the world wasn't nearly as surrounded by computer technology in all its myriad of forms as it is today, where kids are basically handed a DS right out of the womb. I didn't see a gameboy until I was about 7 or 8, and it had a monochrome screen with no backlight.
And no, I don't mean a break from work. I mean a break from computers. It's not just being at work -- when I'm at work, its light outside anyway. I mean no laptop, no fancy phone, no nothing. Go away for a few days and leave that stuff behind, because if I'm just at home on the weekend and spend a lot of time plugged up, then I don't feel any better for not having been at work.
The way kids are today, with all their gadgets and gizmos can't possibly be any better for their brains than it is for their bodies, not playing outside nearly as much as they used to.
Stories like this match up pretty well with my own anecdotal evidence, not that it means much, but when I find NIH studies that seem to point to much more extreme versions of what I've seen, even in myself. Like I said, the effects on an adult are likely to be temporary, but our brains had time to mature before being mushed up.
In Soviet Russia digital devices....AHAHAHAHAHA...ROFL!!
Said scientists added "OKAY THE RESEARCH IS DONE CAN WE SLEEP NOW PLEASE" .............aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
It is not like before "digital devices" people would sit around doing nothing for "downtime".. Before pocket toys that look for our attention people had a list of tasks they had to do. Instead of wasting time sitting there playing plants-vs-zombies they read a book or talked.
My downtime is usually under a car or elbow deep in a motorcycle doing high level brain activity compared to what any digital device causes.
This is all bull-cockey. If anything the digital devices are making people stupid because they dont have to actually work for or retain any knowlege.. they certianly are not causing us to lose downtime, as humans by nature dont do brain downtime. Hell when we sleep we dont even have brain downtime.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I heard an interview with the guy who wrote that book on NPR yesterday. Practically every sentence he spoke contained a "Maybe" or a "We don't know for sure" or an "It's possible that..."
His entire interview was preceded by him saying this is all theories and may not be correct at all and that there's actually no scientific proof of any of this.
So, grain of salt.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
I think a study should be done that correlates smartphone ownership with time spent per bathroom break. I think you all know why.
Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
Any device -- no, any activity -- that continuously takes up your attention is going to have the exact same effect. It's not like the brain subconsciously detects, "Hey, these inputs have discrete steps which I'm able to perceive thanks to my gold-plated Monster cables," and then the person goes nuts.
Quit saying "digital device" when you mean "any thing", quit saying iPhone when you mean any mobile computer, quit saying "digital music" when you mean any music that is downloaded instead of distributed on removable media, etc. You think you're being cutting edge and hip, but really, almost everyone can see your bullshit.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I think in Binary and exclusive or each letter I'm reading with 82 Hexadecimal, so I fool my brain into thinking it's just noise and I'm asleep.As a result however,, I cant remember much ,but Now I can read the same thing 50 times as if it's the first , and this saves me money on E books too.
Gadgets force us to communicate in sound bites. We dig the new shiny. Our attentions no longer span, but spin. Subtle phrasing replaced by clever phrasing replaced by catch phrases. "Think" is a four-letter word. Four letter words are old school. Grammar mocked as elitist. Push2Talk is DoubleSpeak. Allusions wander, lost. News at 11.
Several high-power professor types go "off the grid" on a backcountry rafting rafting trip. Initially there was some anxiety about being incommunicato, but it fades quickly.
I notice the same. I think about work the first day of a backcountry trip or vacation. But then stop thinking about work by the second day.
When I have a really vexing programming problem, I often think of a real creative way to solve it in the moments in bed waiting to fall asleep. The ideas do not occur while I am asleep but when I am fully awake waiting to fall asleep. I am quite sure that the time when nothing is happening is very important to the creative process. Other people might be different but I find this is true for me.
20 minutes a day, you just sit there and quiet your mind, trying to visualize a mundane object or repeating a meaningless mantra. Works wonder, and you might learn some important stuff about yourself while at it :)
Didn't that used to be called sleep ..
Television gives us so much and asks so little in return. Why must you be so tempted by hours of web surfing?
Just turn off you brain and give TV your whole day. There's probably a Deadliest Catch marathon you could be watching.
In recent years I've half wondered if I'd become somewhat of a neoluddite. I pass on facebook, twitter or any social networking -- not that I doubt that those are to some extent useful tools that allow families & friends to keep in touch, but from my vantage point the overwhelming majority of people allow these tools to become far too invasive in their lives. Hell, in May I test drove the HTC Incredible (bought it outright), and after ~4 weeks of playing with it I concluded that while it came in handy _at times_ , I really didn't need it. This, in addition to surfing the web with such a small screen being a bit frustrating at times, lead me back to my trusty nokia 3589i.
If I have down time I get the hell outside. yesterday I walked home and decided to take the long way, despite the lingering rain showers after one wicked thunderstorm. Got soaked in those 25 minutes, but it was better than any time spent connected to the net (dare I say, even better than lurking in these here parts ;-) I find that I'm happier than I've ever been.
Now get off my lawn!
I frequently disconnect, unplug and become unreachable for some time each day.
I like to take breaks after learning a lot of new stuff, otherwise it starts to swim together and get jumbled and I thought this was my FAULT. Now they are saying it's normal. I wonder how many normal folks end up misdiagnosed with things because mankind STILL DOESN'T KNOW HOW THE MIND WORKS - Or doesn't work. :D
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
#include <time.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#define kase(tipo,stmt) case(tipo):{stmt;break;}
char *a[10] = {
"in particular",
"on the other hand",
"however",
"similarly",
"in this regard",
"as a resultant implication",
"based on integral subsystem considerations",
"for example",
"thus",
"in respect to specific goals"},
*b[10] = {
"a large portion of the interface coordinated communication",
"a constant flow of effective information",
"the characterization of specific criteria",
"initiation of critical subsystem development",
"the fully integrated test program",
"the product configuration baseline",
"any associated supporting element",
"the incorporation of additional mission constraints",
"the independent functional principle",
"a primary interrelationship between system and/or subsystem technologies"},
*c[10] = {
"must utilize and be functionally interwoven with",
"maximizes the probability of project success and minimizes the cost and time required for",
"adds explicit performance limits to",
"necessitates that urgent consideration be applied to",
"requires considerable systems analysis and trade off studies to arrive at",
"is further compounded when taking into account",
"presents extremely interesting challenges to",
"recognizes the importance of other systems and the necessity for",
"effects a significant implementation of",
"adds overriding performance constraints to"},
*d[10] = { /* orders: abcd, dacb, bacd, adcb */
"the sophisticated hardware",
"the anticipated next generation equipment",
"the subsystem compatibility testing",
"the structural design based on system engineering concepts",
"the preliminary qualification limits",
"the evolution of specification over a given time period",
"the philosophy of commonality and standardization",
"the top-down development method",
"any discrete configuration mode",
"the total system rationale"};
main()
{
int n, order, w, x, y, z;
srand(time(NULL));
for (n = 0; n < 1000; n++)
{
if (!(n % 10)) printf("\n");
w = rand() % 10;
x = rand() % 10;
y = rand() % 10;
z = rand() % 10;
order = rand() % 4;
switch (order)
{
case 0:
printf(" %c%s, %s %s %s.", a[w][0] & 0xDF, a[w] + 1, b[x], c[y], d[z]);
break;
case 1:
printf(" %c%s, %s, %s %s.", d[w][0] & 0xDF, d[w] + 1, a[x], c[y], b[z]);
break;
case 2:
printf(" %c%s, %s, %s %s.", b[w][0] & 0xDF, b[w] + 1, a[x], c[y], d[z]);
Gentoo gives you lots of opportunity to "think".
http://www.userlinux.net/uploads/media/images/compiling.png
The boob tube is dead! Long live the boob tube!
(Hmm, now that CRT's are obsolete, what will the boob tube of the future be called?)
Incidentally, I have a sort of instinctual protection against this kind of thing to make sure I get the downtime I need. After enough computer use my brain says ENOUGH! and I just stop for a few minutes. Maybe it's a sort of attention deficit disorder, but I say it's my brain knowing when enough input is enough input.
And turn the iStereo off of NPR? No more sleepDriving? Worst of all, I can't continue to have the FireHose delivered in ASCII code electrical pulses to my aural cortex?
Suddenly, the world goes so very, very quiet.
Then what is the point of that Isaac Watts quote "For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do."?
Me, I half-suspect "they" finance this pre-determinate research 'cuz ya'll are using digital devices on the 'net learning "stuff" in an uncontrolled manner and/or entertaining yourselves cheaply instead of believing - and *buying - more of their "stuff"...
(*Double entendre...I so proud.)
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Yay for college. Roughly 5-6 hours of sleep at night, 1-2 hours in the early afternoon (just when the morning's caffeine wears off).
Of course, Slashdot is currently eating up my increased productivity, so rather than dig up the study that demonstrates the positive effects of a mid-day nap, I'm going to start my physics homework :(
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If we don't have ideas, aren't we becoming nothing more then sophisticated animals? - http://bit.ly/9sUuWE
Read a book. A REAL one.
...we, 5-digiters, are like that.