What strange times we live in...? Technology has so come to influence every moment of our waking lives and takes over even when we are sleeping, thereby making it unnecessarily easy for our brains. (you don't need to think, just leave it to technology). Yes !! Our brain is supposed to be altering its wiring in response to the technologies that we deal with.
Are these things familiar....
We are given suggestions by Facebook...... On whom to make friends with and lo you click on.
Our calendars on Outlook ...... Remind us of our next meeting with our friends and colleagues
We wake up to wish our spouses and kids for their birthday..... Using Auto Birthday reminder on Facebook and Orkut
Reminded which program to watch by the Auto Timer on the Television
Get suggestions on Amazon.Com as to which book we should be reading.
Attend parties where everyone's posting updates on fB on how they're enjoying every moment .... never once having spoken to the person sitting beside
Take a ride in a bus with children but stay glued right through the journey to the screen on the device in our palms.
Use a packaged predictive model to tell us which employees will leave us and when..
Subscribe to online news updates to summarize the key events of the day.
GPS Navigator on the dashboard tells us the route map and where all to turn to reach my destination.
According to Prof Susan Greenfield of Oxford University modern technology including social networking and video games may have a detrimental effect on development of children. Further our modern brains are also having to adapt to other 21st century intrusions, some of which, such as prescribed drugs like Ritalin and Prozac, are supposed to be of benefit, and some of which, such as widely available illegal drugs like cannabis and heroin, are not. Electronic devices and pharmaceutical drugs all have an impact on the micro- cellular structure and complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality, our behavior and our characteristics. In short, the modern world could well be altering our human identity.
Recently I came across a quote attributed to the greatest thinker of last century Albert Einstein. It goes thus.....“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
Is his foresight coming true in today's times is something for us to prove wrong. Otherwise it can become an observable law.
We need to be aware of how these devices and technologies are overpowering us and changing the way we behave, relate, communicate and interact with people around us. It is time to reflect. What does it mean for us?
Below are some tips to avoid being victims of too much digital influence. Have picked them from my earlier Blog. Read here Urgent Versus Important.
a) Distance Yourself from Those Digital Distractions: You need to put away these distractions like the SMS to waiting to be read, the latest Tweet from your rock star hero or the latest update on weather, or the email from office all arriving incessantly into the digital device. Keep a time window for such activity and stick to it. If you follow that routine then it starts getting ingrained in your mind, in a few days the sub conscious sub system of the mind learns to rewire our brain circuit
b) Make Time for Reflection: In the hurry and pace of daily life we rarely stop to look back on the day gone by. It would be a good idea to look at how you had done on the things you did each day. You would need not more than 5 to 8 minutes and this exercise also helps you to identify any priority items that you may have to focus on the next day. The human mind has a uncanny ability to tune out what is not in focus and one could easily avoid missing out something which might fall between the no light hours that separate the two days.
c) What Are the Other Distractions: Do you have too many things going on at the same time. It is said that human's multitasking are more likely to make mistakes. This is due to context switching leading to reduced attention. However it is not impossible and people can be trained and become better at multitasking but that is only after training. Otherwise several studies do show the down side of effectiveness while multitasking. So try to focus on the tasks one at a time as the brain needs to refocus as you switch between tasks making use of mental energy. So this goes back to making a priority lists as in point a and re-look at what's important, whats not before you race ahead. Some of us think we are experts at multitasking then you need to have a shared understanding - it is about doing two unrelated tasks. Second the brain has an ability to switch rapidly between one and the other task so we should not confuse that with multitasking.
Are these things familiar....
We are given suggestions by Facebook...... On whom to make friends with and lo you click on.
Our calendars on Outlook ...... Remind us of our next meeting with our friends and colleagues
We wake up to wish our spouses and kids for their birthday..... Using Auto Birthday reminder on Facebook and Orkut
Reminded which program to watch by the Auto Timer on the Television
Get suggestions on Amazon.Com as to which book we should be reading.
Attend parties where everyone's posting updates on fB on how they're enjoying every moment .... never once having spoken to the person sitting beside
Take a ride in a bus with children but stay glued right through the journey to the screen on the device in our palms.
Use a packaged predictive model to tell us which employees will leave us and when..
Subscribe to online news updates to summarize the key events of the day.
GPS Navigator on the dashboard tells us the route map and where all to turn to reach my destination.
According to Prof Susan Greenfield of Oxford University modern technology including social networking and video games may have a detrimental effect on development of children. Further our modern brains are also having to adapt to other 21st century intrusions, some of which, such as prescribed drugs like Ritalin and Prozac, are supposed to be of benefit, and some of which, such as widely available illegal drugs like cannabis and heroin, are not. Electronic devices and pharmaceutical drugs all have an impact on the micro- cellular structure and complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality, our behavior and our characteristics. In short, the modern world could well be altering our human identity.
Recently I came across a quote attributed to the greatest thinker of last century Albert Einstein. It goes thus.....“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
Is his foresight coming true in today's times is something for us to prove wrong. Otherwise it can become an observable law.
We need to be aware of how these devices and technologies are overpowering us and changing the way we behave, relate, communicate and interact with people around us. It is time to reflect. What does it mean for us?
Below are some tips to avoid being victims of too much digital influence. Have picked them from my earlier Blog. Read here Urgent Versus Important.
a) Distance Yourself from Those Digital Distractions: You need to put away these distractions like the SMS to waiting to be read, the latest Tweet from your rock star hero or the latest update on weather, or the email from office all arriving incessantly into the digital device. Keep a time window for such activity and stick to it. If you follow that routine then it starts getting ingrained in your mind, in a few days the sub conscious sub system of the mind learns to rewire our brain circuit
b) Make Time for Reflection: In the hurry and pace of daily life we rarely stop to look back on the day gone by. It would be a good idea to look at how you had done on the things you did each day. You would need not more than 5 to 8 minutes and this exercise also helps you to identify any priority items that you may have to focus on the next day. The human mind has a uncanny ability to tune out what is not in focus and one could easily avoid missing out something which might fall between the no light hours that separate the two days.
c) What Are the Other Distractions: Do you have too many things going on at the same time. It is said that human's multitasking are more likely to make mistakes. This is due to context switching leading to reduced attention. However it is not impossible and people can be trained and become better at multitasking but that is only after training. Otherwise several studies do show the down side of effectiveness while multitasking. So try to focus on the tasks one at a time as the brain needs to refocus as you switch between tasks making use of mental energy. So this goes back to making a priority lists as in point a and re-look at what's important, whats not before you race ahead. Some of us think we are experts at multitasking then you need to have a shared understanding - it is about doing two unrelated tasks. Second the brain has an ability to switch rapidly between one and the other task so we should not confuse that with multitasking.
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