Mobile devices, social media, and streaming are all the rage. But what effect does all that tech really have on your brain?
This is Your Brain on Tech:
- “Look! A squirrel!” Tech is a distraction. Take yourself for example… You’re on tech – probably logged on to check the weather – then noticed you had some new emails… Which reminded you of your Facebook friend whose car was stolen… And now you’re reading GPS trivia about how tech melts your brain. Think you’re multi-tasking? Nope. You’re just doing all 10 activities poorly.
- “Has anyone seen my post-its?” Tech butts into what you’re doing, diverting working memory before it is transferred into long-term memory and stored. It also overloads your working memory, causing you to lose some of the “old stuff” as your continued Googling dumps yet more information into your brain.
“I’m not lazy; I’d just prefer to Google it.” People used to retain vast amounts of knowledge, which they could pull-up and recite on demand. Today’s tech, however, has limited this drive, which is instead outsourced to tech to handle.
Come back and visit us on Wednesday for the rest of this article.