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Screens are assaulting our Stone Age brains

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We are exposed to more information than we can handle

We frequently make jokes about how the emergence of digital technologies and screen-centric entertainment in recent years has drastically reduced our attention spans. Nevertheless, this observation is supported by solid scientific evidence. In his new book “Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age: Coping with Digital Distraction and Sensory Overload,” author and neurologist Richard E. Cytowic believes that a shortened attention span is just one consequence of the recent rise of screen distractions.

As explained here, according to Cytowic’s book, humans are unprepared to deal with the influence and attractiveness of contemporary technologies, especially those promoted by large tech companies, because our brains have not altered much since the Stone Age. Cytowic emphasizes how our brains find it difficult to keep up with the rapid changes in contemporary culture, technology, and society.

From an engineering perspective, the brain has predetermined energy constraints that determine how much work it can do at any given time; stress results from feeling overloaded and causes people to become distracted. Then, distraction results in mistakes. The obvious answers are to reduce the stress or stop the incoming stream.

Hans Selye, the Hungarian endocrinologist who developed the concept of stress, said that it “is not what happens to you, but how you react to it.” Resilience is the quality that enables us to effectively manage stress. All demands that move you away from homeostasis—the innate inclination in all organisms to maintain a constant internal milieu—lead to stress.

One of the main causes of the disruption of homeostatic balance is screen distractions. In his 1970 best-seller Future Shock, Alvin Toffler popularized the phrase “information overload” long before the internet and personal computers were invented. He promoted a pessimistic view of human dependence on technology in the future. Before smartphones became widely used in 2011, Americans were consuming five times as much information in a single day as they had twenty-five years prior. Even today’s digital natives lament how freaked out they are by their ever-present technology.

Visual overload is more likely a problem than auditory overload because today, eye-to-brain connections anatomically outnumber ear-to-brain connections by about a factor of three. Auditory perception mattered more to our earliest ancestors, but vision gradually took prominence. Vision also prioritizes simultaneous input over sequential ones, meaning that there is always a delay from the time sound waves hit your eardrums before the brain can understand what you are hearing. Vision’s simultaneous input means that the only lag in grasping it is the one-tenth second it takes to travel from the retina to the primary visual cortex.

Smartphones demonstrate clear superiority over traditional telephones due to fundamental anatomical and evolutionary characteristics. The primary limitation of digital screen interaction lies in the eye’s capacity to transfer visual information through the neural pathways—from the retinal lens to the lateral geniculate nucleus and ultimately to the primary visual cortex. Our contemporary technological predicament centers on the dynamic nature of radiant energy flows that continuously bombard our sensory systems.

Throughout human history, natural sensory inputs like visual scenes, sounds, and flavors were the sole experiences our sensory receptors could process. Scientific instruments now reveal the existence of vast electromagnetic spectrums that remain imperceptible to human biology. Countless cosmic particles, radio waves, and cellular signals continually pass through our bodies without detection. While we remain largely unaware of this natural background radiation, the artificially produced energy signals that emerged in the twentieth century have become particularly striking to our sensory perception.

We are constantly distracted by our self-created digital surplus, which we are unable to ignore. Data quantities are measured in petabytes (1,000 terabytes), zettabytes (1,000,000,000,000 gigabytes), and larger units, such as tens of gigabytes for smartphone storage and terabytes (1,000 gigabytes) for computer hard drives. However, the anatomical makeup of the human brain is still identical to that of our Stone Age predecessors. We occupy every niche on Earth, and our physical biology is amazingly adaptive. However, it is unable to keep up with the astounding speed of change in contemporary culture, technology, and society. When discussing how much screen time we can handle, attention spans are a major factor, but the energy cost is never taken into account.

According to a widely reported study by Microsoft Research Canada, our attention spans have decreased to less than eight seconds, which is less than a goldfish’s, and this is allegedly the reason why our ability for concentration has completely collapsed. However, that research had flaws, and “attention span” is a phrase used in a non-scientific context. After all, some people’s ‘Stone Age’ minds are capable of solving previously unsolvable mathematical problems, creating a symphony, and monitoring the data stream from a nuclear reactor or the space station.

The capacity and skill of individuals to handle stressful situations varies. Gloria Mark of the University of California, Irvine, and her Microsoft colleagues tested attention spans in real-world settings. On average, users took 150 seconds in 2004 to switch from one screen to another. That time dropped to 47 seconds by 2012. These findings have been confirmed by other research. “If not by others, then by ourselves,” Mark asserts, “we are determined to be interrupted.” Our switching performs poorly, “like having a gas tank that leaks.” She discovered that a simple chart or digital timer that reminds users to take regular breaks is quite beneficial.

Neuroscience distinguishes sustained attention, selective attention, and alternating attention. The ability to concentrate on one subject for a long time is known as sustained attention. The ability to filter out competing distractions in order to focus on the task at hand is known as selective attention. The ability to move from a single task to another and then return to where you left off is known as alternating attention. Maybe the brain has reached its Stone Age limit in terms of the energy cost associated with constantly changing focus throughout the day.

Surpassing certain cognitive thresholds can lead to mental confusion, diminished concentration, disrupted thought processes, and memory impairment. Just as precision tools quickly become seamless extensions of human capability, so too do smart devices integrate into our experience. Historically, when steam locomotives first achieved speeds of thirty miles per hour, fearful critics predicted catastrophic physiological consequences for human passengers. However, subsequent technological innovations—increasingly rapid transportation, communication networks, jet travel, and electronic devices—have progressively been assimilated into cultural norms and everyday existence. Compared to previous eras, contemporary society experiences a more rapid proliferation of technologies, a dramatically larger population, and unprecedented levels of global interconnectedness.

Smart technologies constantly demand and command our attention, in contrast to their analog counterparts. We have trained ourselves to answer calls and texts as soon as they come in. Indeed, livelihoods and jobs occasionally depend on an immediate response. However, the energy expenses of continuously changing and redirecting our attention come at a cost.

Unawareness of this trend is gradually sucking us in. The curiosity to know and the need to see what appears on a screen is a powerful temptation that travels at the speed of thought and crosses the threshold of attention. This represents a new form of addiction that adds to existing ones. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to free ourselves from this problem if society itself does not slow down, recognizing the importance of maintaining a more human and aware pace.

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