busyScientists Fear Technology May Be Rewiring Our Brains
When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social skills like reading facial expressions during conversation, Small asserts.
So brain circuits involved in face-to-face contact can become weaker, he suggests. That may lead to social awkwardness, an inability to interpret nonverbal messages, isolation and less interest in traditional classroom learning.
... this really sounds like the anti-bookworm propaganda some teachers heaped on me when I was younger, because I preferred the company of books to that of the banal little beasts they called my classmates. And while I've got some nearby friends, frankly I prefer the company of online folks to most of the locals, because the Midwest is not exactly a hotbed of culture and brilliance. The scientists may have a point in there somewhere, but if they want to sell it to intellectuals, boy howdy they'd better find a better way to phrase it.
Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 13:02:34 UTC 12 years ago
We can ignore this, if we like... but in my experience it leads to intense loneliness. We need physicality. We need to lie beside someone at night. We need to know what people smell like. A lot of geeks I know play up the wonders of the Internet social life... but then go home and discover that their empty apartments fill them with desolation and sadness... and that the internet has not equipped them with the social tools to go out and meet flesh-and-blood people with all their inconvenient real-time irritants, woo them and bring them home to make a life-in-tandem, as most of us desire.
I think we do ourselves a disservice, if we rely too much on virtual people for companionship. Until we evolve a reciprocal ability to get all our emotional needs from people we can't touch, hug, lean on, have sex with, or sleep nestled against, we will need the social skills that are atrophying right now.
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 14:39:02 UTC 12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 14:42:07 UTC 12 years ago
And you still need people skills to make those meetings work.
(As for using the internet to woo people, that's a very iffy thing. For every 'I met and married my online girlfriend', I hear dozens of 'oh, we met in person and the spark wasn't there'. Some things really need to be experienced in person.)
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 15:07:46 UTC 12 years ago
Really? Not easy for anyone? To use myself as an example, I live with two people I met through an Internet-mediated interest group; I met my SO through another, and
Right now, people use the internet more to feel not-alone in mind... because they can't get enough people of like mind in geographical locations close to them.
This is definitely a major way people use the Internet in my experience as well. It seems on the whole a positive one to me. Would it be better for them if they changed their minds -- changed their personalities -- in order to better fit in with those geographically close to them? This is a real question; it seems to me to be the necessary next step if using the Internet in this manner is not good for people.
And you still need people skills to make those meetings work.
Of course. One could even practice those people skills during those face-to-face meetings, once the Internet has introduced the participants in the first place and been used to set time, date, and so on for the meetings.
(As for using the internet to woo people, that's a very iffy thing. For every 'I met and married my online girlfriend', I hear dozens of 'oh, we met in person and the spark wasn't there'. Some things really need to be experienced in person.)
It seems to me that for any group of relationships united by a descriptor, be it relationships begun due to a common interest, begun over the Internet, between people of opposite genders, between previously divorced people, and so on, some will fizzle early, some end after awhile, some continue for the long term. I don't think that necessarily invalidates any of these groups of relationships. I wouldn't advocate that people go straight from online correspondence to, say, cohabitation -- I would of course recommend some face-to-face meetings -- but in my experience the Internet is not significantly less successful a place to meet potential interests than any other, nor the relationships resulting from such meetings fundamentally flawed in any unique way.
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
December 10 2008, 15:39:52 UTC 12 years ago
I fear that the advent of being able to constantly connect to people who do think similarly to ourselves has left us with a far lower tolerance of those who think differently. We risk losing the skills to build bridges with people. Our real physical neighbors are far more likely to be the ones able to keep an eye on our houses while we're away or give us a literal hand when we need it.
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
December 10 2008, 15:44:20 UTC 12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
December 10 2008, 16:19:25 UTC 12 years ago Edited: December 10 2008, 16:20:47 UTC
Our real physical neighbors are far more likely to be the ones able to keep an eye on our houses while we're away or give us a literal hand when we need it.
Having just participated in two successful fund drives for people who needed help, and knowing people whose neighbors hate them for being, say, same-sex, interracial, or even intellectual couples, I'm not entirely convinced that my physical neighbors are more likely to be helpful than my online friends.
I fear that the advent of being able to constantly connect to people who do think similarly to ourselves has left us with a far lower tolerance of those who think differently.
I'm not convinced of this, either. I don't believe there was some time when people got along more harmoniously than now; my hypothesis is that there were more people who stayed silent, feeling themselves alone, who may speak up now because faster and easier communications (including the Internet) have helped them find those of like mind.
My perspective on this is shaped by having grown up in a fundamentalist church located within a large city. I could see that beyond the narrow confines of my home community that there was a wider and more diverse world out there; I could see within my home community how many of the people I knew were impelled by religion to despise people they interacted with every working day. And yet, as a fan of fantasy and science fiction, who hid such books under her bed because I was taught they were 'occult' literature, I felt terribly isolated. When one of my books led me to a fanclub for its author, the revelation that there were others who shared my interest, who thought the way I do, was beyond wonderful to me.
Being in interest-based communities online is that same experience, writ larger and moving at a much faster speed. My experience of this is merely based around hobbies; I've talked to people who had the same experience of finding the like-minded, of finding themselves not alone, when they had been the only agnostic surrounded by the devout, the seemingly only LGBT person in a community where the expectation was heterosexual and heteronormative. I've talked to people who felt their lives transformed by finding out they weren't the only one, and it seems to me that it wouldn't serve the causes of harmony or justice for people to be denied these places to belong.
If being able to "connect to people who do think similarly to ourselves" does lead to an inability to deal with those who think differently (as opposed to sharing strategies and experiences with the like-minded for dealing with disagreement -- but I digress) then the cure is rejecting that connection. I think that being deprived of fellows to share these interests with wouldn't force people to jettison them in favor of fitting in better with those physically around them, let alone forcing them to make alliances they otherwise would not have made with their neighbors; it might force them to suppress those interests, but I don't think that would actually increase people's happiness. In fact, I think it would make them on average sadder and lonelier.
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
December 10 2008, 18:20:36 UTC 12 years ago
The Internet lets us take in people and the world at our pace. But the world and other people aren't there for our entertainment. The more we live in this box, the less capable we are of dealing with things we can't control: including all the messy, annoying habits of our neighbors.
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate -- but not Jaguar
December 10 2008, 20:13:58 UTC 12 years ago
Of course they are, and that doesn't go away, but my real-world neighbours share precious few interests with me. I talk to mine, I like mine, I am living in the kind of small village settings that people are hankering for. My online friends are not 'instead of' neighbourly contacts, but as well as.
And even without/before the net, many people are just not inclined to be social, cohabiting, friends-visiting, folks - they like their own company just fine. They are friendly with neighbours and maybe a few close friends and family, without ever wanting or needing more.
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 17:48:59 UTC 12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 17:51:20 UTC 12 years ago
As for the ease you've observed... from what you've written here before, you seem to be articulate, friendly and you initiate a lot of conversations. These social things appear to be easy for you, because you appear to be good at them already. :)
The geek-friends I have, particularly the men who have not been made comfortable by their cultural upbringing, would find the kind of thing you're talking about much, much harder. Many of the ones who manage do it with already social intermediaries: they need help. But if they don't have someone like this, then they suffer.
It's kind of like the poor. Unless you're one of them, you rarely understand what they go through, or even see them. The high-socializers rarely see the real depth of the loneliness of people who just can't figure out how to make that first contact.
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 22:05:02 UTC 12 years ago
Yes, some social skill is still necessary. Some people have plenty, others not so much. What can be done for people who aren't satisfied with their current skill level, to help them improve? I actually wrote a class on how to make and maintain friendships. What else...?
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 18:39:46 UTC 12 years ago
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 19:35:45 UTC 12 years ago
This would be something to test. Specifically:
1) Do people's social skills actually go down when they work in jobs that don't involve social interaction -- or do those jobs attract people whose social skills (and perhaps, interest) were low to begin with?
2) If so, do technological jobs involving computer use, etc. cause a greater reduction in social skills than other types of solitary job, or is the reduction equal or less compared to other solitary jobs?
In order to blame technology fairly, the effect must be measurable and distinguishable from other variables' effects. And in order to lay a fair claim for brain rewiring, it would be necessary to produce scans to back that up, comparing technology-changed brains to unchanged brains ... there was a cool study that demonstrated how meditation rewires the brain, using Tibetan monks.
>> I've felt it happening to me: when I am isolated too long with only a computer for company, being among real people is stressful. <<
There are a lot of variables to track there...
1) As above, is there a definite lowering of ability to deal with people, or does that context merely highlight an ability that was low to begin with? I am reminded of the premise that for an introvert, being around people burns up energy; while for an extrovert, being around people generates energy.
2) Does being alone make one more aware of stressful things that people do, including downright destructive and abusive things which should be objected to? Or does it merely lower one's tolerance for everyday petty irritations?
3) Is the total amount of stress and productivity more favorable in context of high-tech low-interaction, or in context of low-tech high-interaction ... or something else? In other words, consider whether the tradeoff might be worth it.
And any of these would need to be tracked across large groups of people, watching for different clusters of data. My strong suspicion is that some people respond one way while others respond in different ways. What works for some people may not work for others, and that's vitally important if something is considered a problem to be solved.
>> We need physicality. <<
This need varies greatly from one person to another, but it's present in almost everyone. Trouble here is, it's society that's the problem, not technology. The tech is just an escape route, a substitute. America has created a context where much touching is illegal or otherwise dangerous. Laws intended to discourage sexual harassment, child abuse, prostitution, and such have contributed to an environment where people almost never touch each other -- and especially, don't touch children. The result is a disaster, but it's not the fault of technology, and it needs a totally different solution.
>> I think we do ourselves a disservice, if we rely too much on virtual people for companionship. <<
I think this depends on context. Some people are just not comfortable having close interaction with others, and that should be okay. Others would like to have close friends nearby, but little or no suitable candidates are available -- or in some cases, it's not safe to go looking locally. Plus which, online friendships can turn into facetime friendships; I do this regularly, it's the main growth method for our local community.
So I consider online companionship an important option; it's not the only one, but it's not inferior or inherently destructive. The article seemed to overgeneralize in ways that weren't very helpful.
Re: Devil's Advocate Jaguar, Reporting for Duty!
December 10 2008, 22:17:28 UTC 12 years ago