大象传媒

I had thought of including this at the bottom of my addiction post, but this is more appropriate.

8 Practical Tips to Cure Your Internet ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)


If you've not seen the below it might interest you:

"Using the latest brain-scanning technology, scientists at the UCLA Medical School have discovered that constant immersion in digital worlds is creating new neural networks in the left front part of the brain (the dorso- lateral prefrontal cortex) that cause digital natives to 'respond faster' to digital stimulation, but it has been found that they also 'code information differently' and 鈥渉ave shorter attention spans鈥� than digital immigrants."

"Constant and prolonged exposure to digital technology is creating new neural circuits in our brains and weakening older, more established ones... "

"Some psychologists argue that ADHD is not truly a diagnostic disorder but rather the brain鈥檚 adaptation to its continual exposure to multiple bits of data delivered through today鈥檚 fast-paced technology. They contend that ADHD is not an illness but simply the result of new wiring patterns."


Molly, TaiwanChallenges and A_PERSON_NOT_A_BOT may all be interested in the below.

"A study performed at Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan set out to investigate the links between emotional conditions such as anxiety, depression and ADHD and Internet addiction. Two thousand fourteen students, 1204 male and 910 female, were assessed for all of the above factors using a self-report questionnaire."

SheffTim, the article you link to states: Internet addiction is often an attempt to escape from negative emotions and unwanted situations.

So which is the cause and which is the effect?

Is internet addiction causing problems in society? Or are problems in society causing people to take refuge in a world they have more control over?

ADHD I'm not so sure about. It's not a big problem here, compared to what I read about western countries. Is that because even from a young age kids have to spend long hours in school focusing on one thing at a time?

Molly, I don't have anything already underway but it's easy enough for me to find you a school group in Taiwan willing to connect. Wouldn't the 'first contact' to friendship process be more interesting to observe?

I have already sent DigRev links elsewhere to the Isle of Man Educational Department as somewhere considered to be Excellent in their embrace of the internet and the Web. As a means of unifying the Island's Schools, Teachers and Pupils as well as Parental involvement the whole Island adopted one standard of equipment, Apple and put all schools online with excellent facilities. In world wide connectiveness terms this has resulted in a Community where not only do the teachers and pupils interact with their contemporaries abroad but the IoM Educational Department and it's schools regularly receive visits from Foreign dignitaries intent on finding out how to learn and share the success. I loved the Primary School pupils movie news report that had them interviewing visitors from Moscow, and every School has a website often maintained by the pupils themselves!

Good comments which may be of interest on the points about distraction and lack of attention (texting/iPods/talking) on the 大象传媒 Radio 2 Folk msg board thread 'Audiences at Folk Festivals' and especially Messages nos: 10, 11, 15, 17, 19 and 24.

/dna/mbradio2/F2142825?thread=6910385&skip=0&show=20

It would seem to be youth playing with technology and adults with no manners!

Thanks for these thoughts - and also some relevant comments on the previous blog post. Molly's out and about today, but she or Dan B will respond on Monday.

In the meantime, do watch our video of Susan Greenfield expressing her concerns about the impact of the web on our brains, and the need for more research, and let us know what you think.

Reposting broken links in previous post:

Relevant comment on the previous blog post
Video of Susan Greenfield

Re Attention - I would like to draw your attention ;) - in particular to Howard Rheingold and his talk at the Recent Rebooting Britain - I think you may find this relevant in this context:



I have only just stumbled across this site and I would also draw your attention to his forthcoming Stanford course in which he outlines the concept of Mindful Infotention



- I am interviewing him on tis at the end of the month - you may want to pay him a visit on your travels:

What will the web do to us? That鈥檚 an important and timely question, and one that we all should be asking.
I鈥檓 not a scientist, but I鈥檓 an author who has spent years studying the science of attention for my latest book, and a journalist who鈥檚 written about the social impact of technology for more than a decade.
Greenfield is right to point out that our technologies are surely shaping us, at least in the short term. Our environment absolutely shapes our highly plastic brains. 鈥淏ackground鈥� television is linked to attention-deficient symptoms in toddlers. High stress impedes medical students鈥� mental flexibility. I agree that 鈥渓iving in two dimensions,鈥� as she puts it, will affect us.
As a result of video games and Facebooking, are we acting like babies, living for the moment, developing shorter attention spans? Again, she鈥檚 right to worry. Facebook and video games aren鈥檛 passive. Yet much of digital life is reactive. We settle for push-button googled answers, immerse ourselves in 鈥渄o-over鈥� alternate realities, spend our days racing to keep up with Twitter, email and IM. This way of life doesn鈥檛 promote vision, planning, long-term strategizing, tenacity 鈥� skills sorely needed in this era.
Yes, humans need to stay tuned to their environment in order to survive. We actually get a little adrenaline jolt from new stimuli. But humans also need to plan for the future, organize, strategize. Recall some of the symptoms of ADHD: impulsivity, pursuit of immediate gratification, and being overly reactive. Today, as we skitter across our days, jumping to respond to every beep and ping and ever-craving the new, are we doing a good job preparing for the future?
If it weren鈥檛 for the Net, I likely wouldn鈥檛 have found out about Lady Greenfield鈥檚 comments, nor been able to respond to them in this way. Yet going forward, we need to rediscover the value of digital gadgets as tools, rather than elevating them to social and cognitive panacea. Lady Greenfield is right: we need to grow up and take a more mature approach to our tech tools.

Re examples of distraction changing the world, a lack of focus certainly changed the world for the growing numbers of people killed by texting, phone-chatting drivers. In the US, crashes of public trains and trolleys due to distraction have drawn headlines. And cell phoning is blamed for a growing proportion of accidents.

Here are links to stories about two of the worst incidents, but there are many many other examples:





Of course, it's important that we don't blame technology in full. I see a changed sense of time as one reason why people operate a speeding piece of machinery inattentively. We live in an era of history where we believe we can control outcomes and especially risk. As well, past cues of sun, season, biology hold little sway, hence the 24/7, sleep-deprived rhythms of life. Doing two things "at once" or multitasking seems natural when we truly believe we are bionic. Such changes began long before pdas or mobile phones - inventions such as the electric light and the telegraph ushered us into an age of instantaneity and split-focus.

Last point about distraction changing the world - sometimes it's for the better. Look at the long history of daydreaming. As Andrea Saveri points out in a recent blog (www.andreasaveri.com), if Einstein wasn't distracted from his work at the patent office, he wouldn't have stumbled upon the theory of relativity. Distraction is a matter of choice, of prioritizing - and sometimes what seems secondary to one person is of top priority to another. The trick is to think carefully about those choices we make. Einstein knew what he was doing, although perhaps his manager didn't agree!

@maggiejackson

Well, let me share my distraction: my father passed away whilst in a coma. This made me re-think what we know about the brain, about technology, about consciousness, about the world and about life itself. Whether I end up with a breakthrough like Einstein or go 鈥渜uietly insane in silent concentration鈥� remains to be seen, :*).

Besides which, Einstein had his secret 鈥淒istraction Index鈥� which enabled him to focus and it鈥檚 documented that his brain composition showed density of synapses which are different from an average person鈥檚, so the boredom of the patent office was a spur rather than the source of his concentration lapse.

Onto today鈥檚 tech鈥︹�︹��

Yesterday Twitter was speculatively valued at US$1 billion. The tool, which is being pointed at and attributed to as a tool for distraction, is gaining economic traction.

鈥�

No one would question that what Professor Greenfield, others and yourself are trying to do is a noble thing, by asking us to carefully consider the CONSEQUENTIAL IMPLICATIONS and trade-offs as much as the liberations and resources availability afforded to us by the Web. It鈥檚 an issue of the approach and methodologies being applied that鈥檚 the cause of resistance rather than the character of the Web skeptics or the nobility of their good intent.

In a sense, the genie of the Web has already flown the bottle. Areas of it are mutating in a viral way that no single person, government, corporate entity, charity or theory (whether economic or socio-psychological) has any control or complete knowledge over.

Yes, it鈥檚 important to start tracking this in a more sensible and systematic way. Still, let鈥檚 allow empiricism, diversity, inclusion and observation help guide us rather than any emotive subjectivity or narrow elite.

Rest assured, there are 鈥渇athers of the Web鈥� who are reminding my generation --- I鈥檓 over 20 years younger than Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Greenfield and female, by the way --- to be more serious and strategic. Tim O鈥橰eilly, who coined the term 鈥淲eb 2.0,鈥� recently made a point of arguing:


鈥淪ilicon Valley has strayed from the passion and idealism that fuel innovation to instead follow what he calls the "mad pursuit of the buck with stupider and stupider ideas鈥�.

Jim Schorr, who lectures on social entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, says he can't imagine "a higher calling for the next generation of tech entrepreneurs."

"The opportunity to focus technology and tech entrepreneurs on the unaddressed, underserved segments of society is enormous," Schorr said. "Developing and extending technologies with limited profit potential, using market-driven approaches, can deliver both social and financial impact and sustainability."

(Source:


Personally, I think O鈥橰eilly and Schorr are making valid and inspirational points. This is why my own models and applications are informed by this rather than by 鈥淐ool! I can code this flashy piece of fluff that spins like a kaleidoscope!鈥� My tools and products fit into a wider and deeper consciousness about the socio-economic and technological ecosystems. They did this decades before my father鈥檚 situation and they will do long after I am myself a parent; what we design is derived from our own natures and not necessarily by the nurture of the environment, in isolation.

Wrt your comment: 鈥淭his way of life doesn鈥檛 promote vision, planning, long-term strategizing, tenacity,鈥� I have to respectfully disagree. Leveraging tools like Facebook, Twitter, email and IM can facilitate all of those things. It鈥檚 a matter of the HOW, not the what.

It鈥檚 like this: those tools are a fishing rod. If we hook an old boot or a minnow instead of sweet, giant salmon it鈥檚 not the fault of the fishing rod. It鈥檚 the fisherperson鈥檚 lack of knowhow and skill. It鈥檚 their inability to read the terrain, factor in weather conditions and position themselves in a spot to concentrate and catch the salmon. It鈥檚 also their inability to seek the wisdom of others who may have fished before (and in that spot). The fishing rod can鈥檛 read their minds. They control it, not vice versa.

Now, I鈥檝e worked directly with CEOs on strategies so let me also share this. Some of the CEOs of the 1950s to 1970s generation are technologically illiterate. They can鈥檛 (and so don鈥檛) navigate their ways around email systems; they have their 20-something PAs print materials off for them. They delegate the management of their time and their attentions to those PAs. They read reports long-hand rather than as 140 character tweets. They鈥檙e also not on their own corporate networks or IM channels. They have few of the so-called 鈥渟ources of distraction鈥�.

Yet some of them are incapable of vision, planning, long-term strategizing, tenacity, those sorely needed skills you noted --- as is evident in the global financial crisis or any Chapter 11 bankruptcy and corporate failures. They also suffer from information overload from those stockpiles of longhand printed out reports, books and even short 2-page executive summaries.

Likewise, the Anthony Edens, Joseph Stalins, Robert Mugabes and (some would say George W. Bushes) did not have the Web or technology to distract them and look what they achieved. Vision? Planning? Long-term strategizing? Inflation in Zimbabwe surged past 230 MILLION PERCENT by October 2008. Eden triggered the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. Stalin is said to be responsible for the deaths of upwards of 10 million, predominantly in Ukraine caused by the famine conditions his policies produced. In China, of course, we have Pu Yi the Last Emperor of China who had no technology distractions; however unlike his illustrious predecessors like Liu Bang (who in 206BC created the Han Dynasty, the first one to embrace Confucianism, strategy and educational and technological innovation), Pu Yi had no vision.

Reaching even further back, Rome and other ancient civilizations fell not because they were distracted by technologies. They fell either because of natural disasters or man-made causes stemming from arrogance, complacency, conceit, narcissism and hubris --- the very same hubris that鈥檚 said to have infected the banking sector in recent years.

What it all boils down to are not the tools, the education or the experience alone, but the JUDGMENT. Judgment derived from rationale, ego and emotion.

There are technical whizz鈥檚 who can have 6 Bloomberg screens flashing constantly at them, a messy desk and they still make a spot-on stock call (every single time). Then there are others who have clean desks, get distracted and lose millions. Meanwhile, there鈥檚 another set who can sometimes tune in and out of their attention spans; sometimes tidy up their desks, sometimes call it right, sometimes are grossly wrong.

In a previous thread, I asked the question of whether it鈥檚 possible to isolate the Web and its tools (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) as the originating source of distraction or whether the inability to concentrate is also attributable to a priori Web changes in education systems, the proliferation of media (print billboards as much as online spam), the migration to magazines and snappy articles, television and fast-editing and also the advent of mobile technologies. Even the lack of conversation around a family dinner table can affect our abilities to concentrate. Fewer and fewer families sit down for an hour over dinner and simply converse and care.

How is that affecting our abilities to sit still, contemplate and concentrate?

Let鈥檚 also make this anecdotal observation and ask the scientists to source and analyze the empirical evidence. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Michael Bloomberg, the Google founders are all long-term technically 鈥減lugged in鈥� to this 鈥渓iving in two dimensions,鈥� and must get more emails, IMs and so-called 鈥渟ources of distraction鈥� than most. Yet they managed to remain focused and to increase the value of their companies and the knowledge repositories of their staff.

In my own case, I don鈥檛 treat tech tools as distractions. I take my fishing rod and aim for the sweet, giant Salmon of Wisdom (brad谩n feasa).

:*).

Hopefully, I鈥檓 not going to lose concentration or consciousness any time soon since there鈥檚 a lot I鈥檇 like to contribute.

***
***

In case anyone鈥檚 unfamiliar with the salmon mythology, please refer to 鈥楾he Boyhood Deeds of Finn MacCumhal鈥�:

鈥�


Thank goodness for the Web because I certainly didn't learn about Celtic mythology at school and my professional life in the chemical industry, banking and technology would certainly never have exposed me to this type of reading!

My photographic contribution about watching tv while surfing the internet...