Society hard-wired for a fall

Tag : Hard Wired

SUSAN Greenfield is instinctively upbeat and optimistic. A passionate advocate for taking science to the masses, the Oxfordprofessor has been showered with honours in Britain and Australiafor her ability to make science relevant to broader society, andshe generally does it with a beaming smile and a thousand words andideas a minute.
All of which makes it striking that Greenfield, one of Britain'sleading brain scientists, is now expressing profound fears aboutthe way new technology is changing our thought patterns andbehaviour.
"I don't want to sound like a techno-Luddite but we have torealise that something profound seems to be happening to the humanbrain," Greenfield explains in the central London office fromwhere she runs the Royal Institution, a 209-year-old seat ofscientific education and research.
"And what really worries me is that we could be sleepwalkinginto a new world of technology without even considering what it isdoing to our brains."
The 57-year-old scientist may not want to sound alarmist or gloomybut her warning is about as serious as it gets. In a new book, ID:The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century, published by Sceptre,she says the challenge to our inner mental world is as big a crisisas the threat climate change poses to our outer world.
Greenfield's central concern is that changes in behaviour andenvironment lead to physical changes in the brain in the same waythat the hippocampus, a part of the brain related to workingmemory, has been found to be physically larger than normal in thebrains of London taxi drivers, who have to memorise thousands ofstreets to win a licence and navigate their city.
People who spend many hours a day in front of computer screens andtelevisions, she warns, are going through an unprecedented processin which the brain is churning out and consuming excessive amountsof a natural chemical called dopamine. Other brain scientists agreethat heightened levels of dopamine could produce important changesin the fine wiring and functions of the brain, suppressing certaintypes of more sophisticated thinking.
The hard scientific evidence is limited but Greenfield believes theresult of all that screen time and addictive dopamine will be thebiggest physical changes to the human brain since the Neanderthals100,000 years ago, producing changes in behaviour and thoughtpatterns that amount to nothing less than a different type ofperson.
Older generations - she describes them as "the people of thebook" - have developed powers of imagination, empathy, contextand meaning which she fears will be much reduced in "thepeople of the screen".
"I think we are going to have the next generation with shorterattention spans and being less risk-averse than other generations,perhaps even reckless," she says, adding that she believesthere are already links between new technology and obesity, and arange of behavioural problems including gambling, drinking andviolence among the young.
"They will be people who are more hedonistic and tend to livefor the moment, a life that is more sensory and less cognitive.People who have a less robust sense of their own identity and aretherefore more easily persuaded or swayed by the wrong kind ofthings, as we see already in the way people are easily persuadedinto movements nowadays.
"People with less meaning to their lives, possibly, and lessof a strong life narrative, so they may be happy rather thanfulfilled: there is a difference."
More than just an improvement in some mental skills and a weakeningof others, Greenfield believes these changes will add up to adifferent sense of identity, a changed sense of who we are and howwe relate to other people and the world.
"For the first time in human history," she writes in ID,"individuality could be obliterated in favour of a passivestate, reacting to a flood of incoming sensations: - a yuck and wowmentality characterised by a premium on momentary experience as thelandscape of the brain shifts into one where personalised brainconnectivity is either not functional or absent altogether."
But Greenfield stresses that not every change will be negative."Being less cautious and risk-averse can be a good thing attimes. In Australia, for instance, I think people are more preparedthan here (in Britain) to have a go and take risks, which is greatso long as it is measured risk. That sort of change could be a goodthing.
"People will also tend to have higher IQs or be good at IQtests and problem-solving. People who have a less developed senseof a cohesive identity might also be able to work in a groupwithout so much worry, and people who are perhaps lessstatus-conscious won't have to worry about owning things andshowing off things like a 1950s consumer. So they would all be thegood things."
With careful thought and planning, the changes that she predictscould be moderated and channelled in positive directions,Greenfield says, acknowledging the views of other analysts who areoptimistic about the potential effects of influences such ascomputer games and improved computer skills.
The most important step, she believes, is to launch co-ordinated,government-backed studies into the impact on the brain of newtechnologies, and that is where she feels Australian governmentsand researchers may take a lead. "My experience is thatAustralian policymakers and Australians in general have more of acan-do attitude and are more open to new ideas like this thanpeople here in Britain," she says.