

Why the modern world is bad for your brain - bootload
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/18/modern-world-bad-for-brain-daniel-j-levitin-organized-mind-information-overload

======
autoreleasepool
> Now of course email is approaching obsolescence as a communicative medium.
> Most people under the age of 30 think of email as an outdated mode of
> communication used only by “old people”. In its place they text, and some
> still post to Facebook. They attach documents, photos, videos, and links to
> their text messages and Facebook posts the way people over 30 do with email.

This is silly and disconnected from reality. My generation knows e-mail is
ubiquitous. E-mail is seen as necessary for professional communications and
everyone from the "millennial" generation realizes that once they get to
college.

I'm not going to text my professor or potential employer let alone contact him
or her on Facebook (which I barely use anymore), when I can use the
convenience of e-mail. Not only does it look more professional, but it keeps
the correspondence intact within a time stamped thread.

------
elorant
That’s why I’ve decided not to own a smartphone. I’m connected while at work,
I don’t want to carry my work when I’m out. Been idle sometimes looks useful
because it allows me to observe the world even if it is other people in the
super market. Spending all day looking at various screens I believe will melt
my brain, reducing my ability to really focus when I need to. For that same
reason I’m not a big fan of social networks either, I just don’t find any use
for them. On the contrary I find them extremely annoying and I believe they'd
hummer my productivity if I was to check every hour or so what my friends did
online. Of course I know I’m a minority.

------
stolio
On the opposite side of the spectrum from too much multi-tasking is what
happens if you single-task intensely for 15 hours a day, 300+ days a year. For
guinea pigs we have professional online poker players, one of whom started
noticing some problems, got some brain scans and wrote about it here[0]. The
TL;DR is his doctor told him if he kept it up he'd have stroke before he
turned 50.

For reference, if you're "multi-table grinding" as a poker player you may
average 750-1,000 hands _per hour_. At 750 hands/hr that's about 1 hand per 5
seconds. That's a single task repeated over 10,000 times a day, sometimes
every day for months at a time.

As with everything, balance seems to be the key.

[0] - [http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/15033-dusty-schmidt-
thi...](http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/15033-dusty-schmidt-this-is-my-
brain-this-is-my-brain-on-poker)

------
dlandis
> _Each time we dispatch an email in one way or another, we feel a sense of
> accomplishment, and our brain gets a dollop of reward hormones telling us we
> accomplished something._

I see many people at work with this type of addiction and I think it is
responsible for luring a lot of technical people into the management world. As
a manager, your work day can consist entirely of these micro-tasks and micro-
accomplishments that satisfy the novelty-seeking portion of the brain. And
attending meetings should be included in this category as well since people
also get a false sense of accomplishment from attending those, and I think
they have more potential to satisfy our novelty bias as well since they have a
degree of spontaneity.

------
resoluteteeth
"Just a decade or two ago, those same people would have let a landline on
their desk go unanswered during a meeting, so different were the expectations
for reachability."

It's true that with cellphones you can reach someone even if they aren't at
their home or desk, but aren't people switching their phones to silent a lot
more? Maybe this depends on where you are, but I can't immediately get through
to a lot of people I know the first time I call their cellphone. Text messages
also make it a lot easier to communicate asynchronously, if you'll pardon the
metaphor. I have actually been wondering if the expectation of availability
for realtime remote voice communication isn't going to slowly die over a
period of decades.

------
chasing
I'm not a fan of linkbait-style titles like this: "Why the modern world is bad
for your brain."

How about "Neuroscientist Daniel J Levitin explains how constant multitasking
is making us less efficient"?

~~~
asdfologist
No, I disagree - here, the linkbaity title is pretty accurate. "Bad for your
brain" reflects the article's core idea of multitasking causing cognitive
loss, whereas your proposed title doesn't mention it at all.

~~~
chasing
Fair enough, but wouldn't you agree that "the modern world" vague to the point
of meaninglessness?

Based on the headline, the article could be an article about food, pollution,
education, social media, work habits, mobile phones causing brain cancer,
vaccines causing autism, etc.

~~~
asdfologist
Yep I agree.

------
noahdesu
This article really rings true for me. I've found that I'm far more happy and
productive when I'm not multitasking.

One thing that I've found particularly challenging is dealing with text
messages from significant others while at work. Programming and problem
solving tasks that take 30-60 minutes just to get started with mentally, can
easily turn into a few hours of intense concentration. But interactions with
others during this time can significantly derail things, despite not being
responsive also derailing things through a feeling of guilt.

------
heurist
I think content aggregators like reddit or HN have this problem too. "That
looks interesting! I wonder when the comments say... First one: good point!
Second: hadn't thought about it that way! Third: that was dumb. Fourth:
boring. Next thread." They encourage shallow thought and glossing over
details. I often wonder how my attention span would change if I could get
myself to quit these sites.

~~~
ejk314
I've recently blocked Reddit on my computer. What happened was a re-balancing
of my slacking off. Now I don't spend my time on Reddit but I spend much more
time playing Minecraft or otherwise farting around.

The main benefit I've seen, however, is that I've stopped flitting between
work and Reddit. That alone has done wonders for my at-home productivity. I've
also found it easier to pull away from non-productive activities when it's
time to get back to work. I'd recommend trying it out.

------
mrdrozdov
This post reminds me of the book "Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of
Information Overload".

My take is optimistic. Charlie Munger uses mental models to handle his
business decisions. Maybe we just better mental models to handle high
frequency information digestion and distribution.

~~~
rbrogan
I am optimistic as well. I have dealt with many of the problems in the article
and developed my own mental tech to solve them (mostly around personal
organization and self-discipline). I think it is better assume that problems
do have a solution, rather than think there must be something bad which is the
cause (e.g. technology itself).

------
11thEarlOfMar
"We are doing the jobs of 10 different people while still trying to keep up
with our lives..."

My first experience with Uber was to order a ride for my wife and daughter. As
they were en route, it occurred to me: I had unwittingly accepted the job of
dispatcher, and was paying for the pleasure.

~~~
mikegioia
I think you're totally right about taking on that job, but couldn't that
particular example just be you doing something nice for your family? I
wouldn't consider that a job as it is a favor.

