My Thoughts on Technology's Impact on the Brain

We have all heard the misconceptions on how technology can be quite detrimental to our brains but that depends on how we use the technology. I was very skeptical for a long time regarding anything positive that technology could potentially contribute to the development of our brains. In her book, Susan Greenfield, "asserts that the digital revolution exploits our biological propensity for mindlessness. She cites laboratory studies finding that social networking and video gaming trigger dopamine in the same manner as junk food and Ecstasy...Because cyberspace lacks causal sequence, is devoid of immediate consequences and gives instant access to information without guidance, our attention spans shrink, deeper thinking declines and interpersonal bonds wither." This was quoted in Matthew Wisnioski's article found here How digital technology is destroying your mind. Just like Greenfield's findings, I always found myself thinking about technology the same way. 

But, we live in an age where the average amount of technological devices a human owns are at 4 currently. I am one of those people fits into that statistics and have decided to focus on the positives in having so much technology around me which I use daily. If we are going to have that many devices, then we might as well use them to the fullest! The new generation of young people who are using technology have shown us, through research that has been conducted that technology isn't so bad after all. For example, In his article, How Digital Technology Has Changed the Brain, Taspcott notes that "scientists are beginning to document the traces that the Internet leaves on sensitive young brains. People who play a lot of action video games, for instance, process visual information more quickly than people who don't, according to a seminal 2003 article in Nature." The "Net Generation" as Taspcott refers to young people who have grown up in this phase of the digital age, doesn't really read as much out of books anymore as we used to in the past. Many think it is a waste of time. With the facility Google provides us it is much quicker and easier to type in a question and have an answer for it in less than a 1 minute.After having read the above mentioned article, even I prefer to turn to technology when researching anything. I don't have time to waste and if it is online then why not use it. 

Not only are we able to spend less time looking for information but it has been found that people who utilize technology more often are able to task switch and won't get distracted as they are interacting on social media at the same time they are listening to music. Taspcott says, that this generation of people can, "keep up their social networks while the concentrate on work- they seem to need this feel comfortable. I think they've learned to live in a world where they're bombarded with information, so they can block our the TV or other distractions while they focus on the task at hand." I identify with these findings as well since I am constantly task switching to check all my social media in the middle of doing others things.

So how do we use the new information about how great technology is in our own classroom? There are many ways that we can implement this great tool with our students such as through digital stories, infographics, and other visual means developed through tech. All of these affect the students' brains by sending the information they gather from all their senses and synthesizing it into one full picture which all occurs in the parietal lobe. The more ways we can present them with new information, the more neuron connections there will be; hence they will remember more and be able to apply it to their daily experiences. 

Stay tuned to see how to further implement tech in the class because technology isn't so bad after all!