Mental Health

Technology Has Reduced Thinking and Less Time to Reflect

By Drishya Nair | Update Date: Sep 07, 2012 09:41 AM EDT

A major part of the day is spent online by adolescents these days. The growing up years spent by the elderly during their time, was a lot different from how it is for the the teenagers of this generation.

How the still-developing brains of teenagers cope with the abundant information around them is a mystery and an interesting area of research for many a researchers.

Dr Jay Giedd from the US National Institute of Mental Health has been researching on the impact that this constant connectivity has on the brains of young people MRI scans, reports news.com.au.

In the last ten years, there has been a huge difference noticed in the amount of time spent by people on electronic gadgets like mobiles and computers, said Dr Giedd, who has been leading a long-term study of brain development involving twins since 1991.

Apparently, the change is most evident in young adults, approaching their twenties, when compared to their counterparts 10 years ago.

"We had this huge revolution in terms of the amount of time our participants were spending outside and playing," Dr Giedd told AAP.

"It was just being so dramatically changed by technologies."

These observations have paved way for more research aimed at determining how the digital revolution is affecting the young brain.

Dr Giedd pointed out, that this sudden explosion in technology has led to children multitasking - for example, children watching a video, while still monitoring Facebook and doing their homework, all at the same time the report said.

With the help of MRI scans, researchers will be able to determine how exactly the multiple streams of information is processed by teenagers' brains, while the aim of the study will be to determine if those who multitasked got better with it, or if focusing on just one project at a time was a better option.

According to Dr Giedd, currently there are opposing views about how technology is impacting the younger generation and he hopes that further research into the matter might provide answers.

"In a couple of clicks and less than a minute we can find almost any fact, or figure. There's huge upsides in terms of access to information, which is very unusual in our human history. It's never been like this before. The downside is that it's so fast and so accessible, people are not learning to think deeply, to have that quiet time of reflection," he said.

The findings of the study will be presented at the University of NSW Brain Sciences Symposium on Friday.

© 2023 Counsel & Heal All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics