According to researchers from the University of San Diego in California, information overload through modern technology causes shorter attention spans and damages our brains.
Their research revealed that the amount of information the average person is exposed to on a daily basis amounts to over 100 thousands words a day or 23 words each and every second which they say would be enough to crash a laptop after a week.
It’s true though, the development of technology over the past few decades means that relatively few people nowadays are without some sort of desktop, laptop, netbook, or other gadgets so cannot totally escape the daily email checking ritual, the Internet, texts, IMs, TV, Videos and Video games, gadgets and gizmos, adverts, pop-ups and so on.
The researchers maintain that as a result of information overload our attention spans are becoming shorter and we are becoming more disconnected from other people.
They obviously don’t use Face Book then! Joking aside, the study has revealed that too much information makes us shallow and disconnected.
“I think one thing is clear: our attention is being chopped into shorter intervals and that is probably not good for thinking deeper thoughts.” says Roger Bohn, a co-author on the study.
Edward Hallowell, a New York based psychiatrist who specialises in ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder appears to agree.
“We have a generation of people who I call computer suckers because they are spending so much time in front of a computer screen or on their mobile phone or BlackBerry.
“They are so busy processing information from all directions they are losing the tendency to think and to feel.
“Much of what they are exposed to is superficial. People are sacrificing depth and feeling and becoming cut off and disconnected from other people.”
According to Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience at the universities of Oxford and Warwick, information overload could cause our brain to evolve in a new way.
“One of the things we have learnt over the past 20 years is that the brain does have a capacity to grow and increase in size depending on how it is used.
“Perhaps the personal experience of having to deal with all of this information will cause new nerve cells to be born and create new nerve connections in the brain,” said Mr Blakemore.
Hey that sounds kinda cool actually!
