Your Brain on Computers: Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price
To read full news article click "Your Brain on Computers" above.
begin quote:
Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.
These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement — a dopamine squirt — that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.
The resulting distractions can have deadly consequences, as when cellphone-wielding drivers and train engineers cause wrecks. And for millions of people like Mr. Campbell, these urges can inflict nicks and cuts on creativity and deep thought, interrupting work and family life.
While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress. end quote.
And so, the obviously addictive results of electronic media of all kinds are in. They distract us from having normal reactions to friends, relatives and co-workers and without our media we become bored and uninterested in friends, relatives and our surroundings. Sounds like an addiction to me. And even worse, if we are so addicted that we text while driving many of us crash or even worse die. Sounds like a similar thing to drunk driving or driving drugged in the number and frequency of crashes.
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