This Is Your Brain on Computers

Remember the old Public Service Announcement "This is Your Brain on Drugs?" Well, forget drugs - there's a new and more insidious danger for your brain: computers.

This is your brain on computers.

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.

And scientists are discovering that even after the multitasking ends, fractured thinking and lack of focus persist. In other words, this is also your brain off computers.

Matt Richtel of The New York Times explains: Link


I want to say it's not true, but personally, ever since I started working on an Internet-focused job, i've long experienced a sense of restlessness whenever I couldn't get my fill. It's harder to concentrate sometimes.
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