Screens R Us
A few days ago, I sat down to read a novel, an activity that I’ve enjoyed for a large portion of my life. I picked up Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag and was three pages in before I realized that I had my phone in my hand, mindlessly scrolling through memes on Twitter. My warped behavior and frenzied headspace embodied the rise of modern-day tech and how our dependence upon it affects our manner of thinking.
I recently finished reading Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, which began to offer an explanation for my predicament. Dozens of studies conducted by highly educated individuals prove that going online promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. Our online usage has quite literally changed the way that we think, in such a sense that our brains have adapted to always remain in a hyperactive state, which consequently prompts us to always crave something next — something to like, something to comment on, and something to share.
The technology that we engage in encourages and rewards our brain for our usage, whether we know it or not. Each time that we retweet a funny meme, open a Snap, like a Tik Tok, or respond to a direct message, our brain is given something to appraise. This delivers, as Carr points out, repetitive and addictive sensory and cognitive stimuli that are proven to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions. Social media may have provided us with powerful ways to converse with others, but it has also transformed who we are with far-reaching consequences. Each time that we “hop on the gram” or “hit the DMs”, we are no longer solely humans — we are the transcended generation of lab rats habitually pushing levers to grasp any ounce of social nourishment that we can.
We typically spend every waking hour sending or receiving some sort of interaction on our phones. Psychotherapist Dr. Michael Hausauer notes that we teens have a significant interest in knowing what’s going on in our peers’ lives, which goes hand in hand with significant anxiety about being out of the loop. We crave to know what’s whirring up within social platforms, and if we stop engaging for a few short moments, we risk becoming invisible. Consider the deep, psychological effects that our brains endure due to our fear of online absence. Not only is it inherently negative for us, but it roots us down to our online presence. We are mentally locked within the social realm of the Net, and the only thing holding us back from being in touch with ourselves again is our awareness of the issue.
Our brains undergo a remarkable thing called neuroplasticity, which, as Carr explains, is similar to a rubber band. Our neural loops don’t snap back to their old ways, they hold onto their changed state. This places our tech-use at a compromisable position since any negative habit can be ingrained into our neurons, just as easily as positive habits do. Our routine activities, such as social media, are ingrained, while unused circuits are pruned away. It’s not just that we’re habituating ourselves into being distracted, it’s that the neurons in our brains are rewiring and molding differently than they have been for generations. And it’s comforting to know that my inability to read a book as staunch as I once could is not entirely my fault — we can just blame our neurons for making us slightly dumber and less engaged than we used to be!
Pointing back to my frenzied headspace, we now have studies to back up our anxiousness after heavy tech-use. A CNN study reveals that compared to teenagers who check social media only a few times a day, teens who checked social media between 50 and 100 times a day were 37% more distressed, and those who checked more than 100 times a day were 47% more distressed. A Newport Academy study indicated that 81% of older teenagers engage in social media, and 50% of them admit that they are heavily addicted to it. This proves true that our addictions are on the rise, and it expresses a strong correlation to our stress resulting from it. We may depend upon social media to socialize, yet we’re left with a disillusioned perspective of human socialization.
It is vital that we properly evaluate how dependent we are upon tech before it leads to an even greater compromise of our mental capacities. Our growing awareness is not an indictment of technology, but instead, a call heeding us to be conscious of the ways in which tech has and is affecting us.
