Is Your Brain Being Retrained?

Hooked on gadgets. Multi-tasking in a new techno-age. What do you think?



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/te...ref=technology



Anecdotal, of course, but since I'm older, I've noticed how personal interactions have changed with the barage of smart phones, emails and computers, competing with face-to-face verbal skills. Possibly with a negative affect.

I never wanted to take a family car trip with everyone looking at screens, or tuning out conversation because they had iPod ear nibs, nubs, whatever they're called. Let alone watching a DVD while driving through beautiful and REAL landscape. My kids say I'm stuffy and old fashioned.

Reading this family's story made me cringe a bit. But I also know it's the "norm" for many families. Instead of talking or playing with each other, it's texting under the dinner table, or "interacting" via screens.

It's not really getting to know or understand one other intimately. Hell, even going to the grocery store now is more like interacting with a computer, even if there's a human cashier.

Everyone looks to a screen but not to your face.

Saw this last weekend, thought it was interesting and prescient. That said, that dude is clearly an extreme case.

But the whole idea of addiction and how it rewires our brains interests me. And saddens me, as I feel like I'm being asked to multitask quite a bit. Yet we all seem to know multitasking is mentally stupid...

Ultimately, I guess we can only hope all this technology becomes so commonplace that we don't see as many "freak" cases as the one in that article.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifesty...16-02/st_essay

Another perspective perhaps? :)

Everything is changing, marching into new territory every day. Our descendants will be as alien as our anscestors. We're the link.

Thats always true choobs for gods sake.

I have a coined a term, it's "chauchology"

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Originally Posted by Aimless

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifesty...16-02/st_essay

Another perspective perhaps? :)

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I think it's a good point, and a great example of why cities endure and must be invested in.

But I think that's a bit different of an issue than the one GGT was posting about. Most people think there is a line between using electronic services to facilitate/enhance real-life social interaction, and just being addicted to 'em. Don't you think?

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Originally Posted by Spawnie

Thats always true choobs for gods sake.

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Yeah, and what of it? Did I say we were unique motherscratcher?

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

Everything is changing, marching into new territory every day. Our descendants will be as alien as our ancestors. We're the link.

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I disagree.

Methods and lifestyle has changed since for instance Roman times, but we still have very much in common.

...oncluding those annoying sandals with the strap between the toe and other fingers... strangely enough, even with our technology, a lot of people still opt for that cheap sandal monstrosity even though sandals that work with velcro are more hygenic and comfortable....

To be fair to the Romans, though, they actually had straps at the back to hold feet in the sandals...

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

Yeah, and what of it? Did I say we were unique motherscratcher?

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You implied it. Why say "We are the link" when you apparently meant "Everyone is the link"?

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Originally Posted by agamemnus

I disagree.

Methods and lifestyle has changed since for instance Roman times, but we still have very much in common.

...oncluding those annoying sandals with the strap between the toe and other fingers... strangely enough, even with our technology, a lot of people still opt for that cheap sandal monstrosity even though sandals that work with velcro are more hygenic and comfortable....

To be fair to the Romans, though, they actually had straps at the back to hold feet in the sandals...

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I disagree. With all of it.

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Originally Posted by Spawnie

You implied it. Why say "We are the link" when you apparently meant "Everyone is the link"?

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Anyone in any now is the link between the future and the past, which was sort of the point. Too deadpan for you, I guess. Also, it was a play on the "missing link" in our proto-human ancestry. Lastly, our brains are far more trained than the 1901 brain, much less the barbaric Roman brain, though ding dong Aggie's too fucking dense to get it. That fucker.

"Too deadpan".

Yeah right :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Spawnie

"Too deadpan".

Yeah right :rolleyes:

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Clearly. Maybe if you were more intelligent.... hmmm. Have you been kicked in the head recently? Football player?

On the internet, where there are many stupid people saying many stupid things, it is very stupid to say a stupid thing and then claim that you were being deadpan and it was someone elses fault that you were too stupid to realise that a stupid statement in a sea of stupid statements was never going to be flagged up as being wittily deadpan instead of what it was, which was stupid, especially coming from you, who are stupid.

Got that, stupid?

Spoiler:

Rugby player.

I think you may have found your favorite word.

Spoiler:

Deadpan? ;)

Second favourite








(;))

The dopamine squirt. Without it, people get bored. I notice it all the time now. Like people on dates at an intimate restaurant who can't keep their phones off and pocketed. Exiting a movie theatre or landing at an airport, first thing people do is check their phones. A while ago the term crackberry came about, because even without in on their person, people felt like a phantom vibration. (some even swear they can anticipate the nanosecond before it goes off....)

I wonder if more adults will exhibit ADD symptoms with short or fragmented attention spans.

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Originally Posted by GGT

The dopamine squirt. Without it, people get bored. I notice it all the time now. Like people on dates at an intimate restaurant who can't keep their phones off and pocketed. Exiting a movie theatre or landing at an airport, first thing people do is check their phones. A while ago the term crackberry came about, because even without in on their person, people felt like a phantom vibration. (some even swear they can anticipate the nanosecond before it goes off....)

I wonder if more adults will exhibit ADD symptoms with short or fragmented attention spans.

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Yeah. I have this. All of it. :crazyeyes:

You and millions of others. Maybe one test is....can you go on vacation and leave the tech gadgets behind, without going thru withdrawal? ;)

Yes, I can. I had to during my trip to the Dominican Republic in May. The humidity was so high, my blackberry and my laptop literally stopped working. The laptop started up again halfway through the flight home after I opened it and blew that super dry overhead air on it. But I had to put the blackberry into a sandwhich bag of rice overnight to dry it out before it would work again.