Dr. Richard Cytowic
Appearances
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Well, today's brain is no different from those of our distant ancestors millions of years ago. It hasn't evolved one iota. And so we are still faced with the same restrictions and liabilities that our distant ancestors faced. And this is a problem when we're faced with the overabundance of screens. These limitations and restrictions on our brain are things like what?
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
I think what's going to surprise most people is that our brain has a fixed limit of energy available. I mean, most people don't think about when they're saying, oh, I'm addicted to my phone. They don't think about it in terms of what their brain is doing, but people like me who are trained in neurology and neuropsychology, we think about these issues of the brain's point of view all the time.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And so the brain has a limited amount of energy available. And no amount of diet, exercise, Sudoku puzzles or supplements is going to be able to change that. There's a limited amount of energy and attention that you can devote at any one time. And the Stone Age brain evolved in a much simpler time of limited resources in a struggle survival.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And now it's being bombarded by this relentless amount of sensation thrown at it. And it simply can't handle it.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
It's simply overload, is that we feel exhausted and frustrated and tired all the time that we can't keep up. So we're asking it to do things that it simply never evolved to do.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
The thing that makes the smartphone so addictive is the companies have really honed in on what psychology calls positive intermittent reinforcement. And this is the same thing that slot machines use.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
is that you know you're playing a slot machine and you get you get a minor hit then get a medium head then you get a larger hit and you keep you keep putting money into the machine hoping to get a big jackpot and this is what scrolling and you know the thing so the scroll is what i call the infinite scroll there's no end to the scroll you just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
So you got a little hit of something interesting or amusing or meaningful or important. And so you keep scrolling, hoping for something bigger and a bigger hit. And it never comes. And that's how they have us hooked.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
But often for many people, there isn't anything better to do. They're bored and they're looking for stimulation. I mean, we have associated the phone with pleasure. I mean, it gives us all these really pleasurable things and in a way, frightening, I think.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
They won't. then they have become wholly captive to this tech industrial complex. And so they are now at the mercy of a third party who determines what they will see, what they will think, how they will feel.
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Well, one of the things that really concerns me is virtual autism, which you see particularly in younger individuals. And that is young individuals who have a very high screen exposure show symptoms that are similar to developmental autism. That is, they refuse to make eye contact. They have reduced language. They have reduced social interaction.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
This has been shown in a number of different studies that the greater the screen exposure, the greater the social isolation, the greater the lack of eye contact and the deeper the loss of language.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
and what is remarkable is that unlike developmental autism if you take the screens away these symptoms reverse and these have been shown that you know kids have been who have been shipped away to camp where there's no screens of any kind and after just five days all of a sudden they start talking to one another and interacting socially
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
so i mean i've seen this firsthand my nephew had a birthday party and a friend of his his son was there and he's playing with with his games and he has a battery pack because obviously he's gaming a great deal of time and the mother says say hello to richard he said i did um so you all you get is grunts you get if you get if you get any reaction at all the best you get is grunts you don't get any kind of human interaction
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
So that's what I see as one of the biggest kinds of things. And then some parents think that the iPad is marvelous because their kids are interacting with it and it keeps them quiet. And so mommy doesn't have to worry about it and all that. But the iPad is the worst babysitter of all time.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And to put it in front of a child, in front of an infant or a toddler is, I think, a form of child abuse because what you're doing is you're blocking the developing central vision that they would normally be experiencing in the real world by crawling around and putting everything in their mouth and having a visual apprenticeship with the world.
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And you're blocking it and replacing it with mediated screen images. And by mediated, I mean artificial ones. So iPad characters, as cartoonish or wonderful as they may be, they don't talk to children, they talk at them. And that's not the same thing as an adult talking to them in full sentences and engaging them one-on-one. To an infant, nothing is more fascinating than a human face.
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Every parent knows this. Their eyes lock on it. And they do not lock on an iPad in the same way. And don't forget that the brain is undergoing a huge amount of transformation in the first three years of life. And then again, around puberty, there's an enormous reconfiguration. Just as the body changes, the brain is changing in the same way, but we never think about it that way.
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And it doesn't stop until about age 25. So putting these artificial devices in front of people, I think does real harm.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
The peer pressure is enormous. In D.C., we happen to have one of the Waldorf schools, and the Waldorf philosophy is no technology until about, I don't know, age 11. And I interviewed the principal and she said the hardest thing is getting the parents to agree to not have any technology. The kids are quite happy doing all their other stuff.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And, you know, and the argument that, well, they need to learn this for the future, their future occupation, etc. Well, by the time a three-year-old or a five-year-old is adept at whatever technology you're throwing at them, And by the time they get to be ready to work, that technology is going to be so obsolete that it won't matter.
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
So I don't see the argument that one needs to learn how to do this. I mean, President Obama not many years ago said, oh, kids need to learn how to code. Learning how to code will be as important as reading and writing arithmetic. Well, guess what? Now you could use ChatGP2 and all these AI tools to write code for you. So there's no need to know how to code.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
So things become obsolete very, very fast. So I think it's hard to predict what people will need to know for the future because the future is very uncertain.
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Well, then I'd smack the parents in the face and say, back off. You don't need to be in contact with them all the time. I mean, my parents didn't need to be in contact with me all the time. They knew I'd show up after school or during lunch or after recess and all that. So if there's such an emergency, they can call the school office and then the principal will come. bring the kid to the phone.
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
So I think that's just a ridiculous argument. I must be in contact. And I think what that's, I think shows helicopter parenting and that the parents are so anxious about losing control. And so that's their problem.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And, you know, they're welcome to have it, but I think it only makes them anxious. And so when you ask, like, what good does it do you to be so concerned that you have to reach your kid 24 hours a day and monitor them constantly and check on their whereabouts via app finders, what's wrong with you? Why can't you just let them be an adolescent or a teenager or an adult?
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And this was a summer month, I take it?
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
So not only did he not have screens to distract him, but if he was there in the summer months, he was probably outdoors a lot of the time, and he got a lot of daylight exposure. And this is another thing is that... It used to be the parents would say, go out and play. Well, now nobody says go out, go outside. And so kids are not exposed to sunlight.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
And again, other studies show that, like, for example, people have gone away to these camps where they had like 14 hours of daylight a day. And the only light was the firelight of in the evening, which is highly infrared. And they they came back entirely changed people and their sleep was so much improved. So, yes, your observation is spot on.
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How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Well, the response to that is, why didn't you text back? I didn't need to. I will do so. I text back at 4 o'clock every afternoon, or I check my emails at 8 a.m. every morning, and that's it. There's no other window. And so the question is, why do you want to let other people dictate your attention span and your schedule. So this whole, I couldn't get hold of you.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
It was, yes, you couldn't because I'm only on during these hours and here's where you can reach me. And Basically, the question is, what could possibly be so important that I have to drop everything and respond to your text or your email? In my own website, I have a way to contact me. And I've got, I think, three ways that says, you know, this is urgent. Number two, get back to me within a month.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Or three, get back to me if and when you can. And it's amazing. And I said, you know, please be specific about what you want, et cetera, what you want to ask. And it's amazing how people respond to that. And they follow that willingly. You know, once you set out guidelines of how to contact me, People act accordingly.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
This is like Pavlov's dogs. You know, if you respond right away, indeed, you've trained people to know that you will respond right away.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Oh, listen, I'll be the first to admit that I'm just as guilty as everybody else to these forces. I know, except I know that what's going on, but yes, I will pick it up. I will scroll and I realize that I've spent, oh my God, I've spent, you know, 20 minutes on TikTok, et cetera. And it takes a lot of willpower to,
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
to say no to these things and ask, you know, is this really what I want to be doing with my time?
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Thanks, Mike. It's been really pleasurable. It's been a hoot. Thank you so much for having me on.
Something You Should Know
How Notebooks Changed Your Life & Are Video Screens Really So Bad?
Young individuals who have a very high screen exposure show symptoms that are similar to developmental autism. They refuse to make eye contact. They have reduced language. They have reduced social interaction.