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Screening Out the Empathy: The Impact of Screen Culture on Our Brains
As the online world continues to expand, Oxford University's Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield has warned excessive screen culture may be changing the way our brains are wired.
As the online world continues to expand, Oxford University's Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield has warned excessive screen culture may be changing the way our brains are wired. (photo: Flickr user Ed Yourdon) The effect of screen culture on the brain is not dissimilar to symptoms associated with attention deficit disorder, such as a shorter attention span and decline in empathy.
Professor Greenfield points to her native England where the number of prescriptions for ADHD has trebled in the past decade.
It is unclear what has driven the rise - it could be that doctors are being more liberal with prescriptions or increased awareness of the condition, or its higher prevalence. Whether there is a link between time spent with screens and the condition is also unclear. But, she argues, this is evidence enough of the need for more research.
''There should be more money for research into why games are addictive, what mental processes are being tapped into ... There should be development with neuroscientists and software writers on how to deliver experiences and the kind of talents that we think might be in jeopardy.''
While we are born with pretty much all the neurons we will ever have, the growth of the human brain revolves around the way connections are made between brain cells.
In Australia to deliver the annual Florey lecture, at the University of Adelaide this evening, Professor Greenfield argues the ''yuck and wow'' scenario of the internet - ''where you live in the short-term world where you have immediate reactions to things that flash up in your face and bombard your ears'' - might drive brain connections and brain cell circuitry in a way that shortens the attention span.
''It's wonderful that we might have high IQs, not be risk-averse, have good short-term memories ... but in a sense we're turning ourselves into efficient computers,'' the professor of pharmacology said.
''But what we do that computers don't do is be very creative and have insights. I would be very sad if the next generation wasn't given the opportunity to do those things.''
She said ''a similar level of sponsorship, effort and diversity'' should be invested in the area to push it into the mainstream as had been done in climate change research and debate.
''Society, governments and teachers really need to start working together on long-term study.
''I'm not going to say that's endangering the life of the planet in the way that climate change is, but for sure it could be changing the face of society and the way we live.''
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Show AllThat was way too much information to read at one time.
Where did I put my car keys?
Shop.
Have more kids.
Text.
What were we talking about?
I don't know about others, but overall, I find certain statements by this "Baroness" Professor Susan Greenfield totally inane - especially the part about a ***similar level of sponsorship***, effort and diversity as had been done in ***climate change research and debate***.
Come on! Just tell the kids to just shut the damn gadgets down, go out and play! Why would you need a multi-million dollar taxpayer funded research only to find out how bad something is when the effects are there to see? And what's with the gratuitous mention of "climate change research and ***debate***"?
Also, I think use of the term "empathy" in the title and in the article is somewhat presumptuous, as if this is happening mainly as a result of these gadgets. If it were not these gadgets, it would be something else. And it was the original lack of empathy that led to the imperial conquests by Britain (including of Australia where this lecture was given) and it's the lack of empathy in the British society that allows for a class that calls itself "peers" and enjoy the privileges that come with it. How about some research into that?
Though the article mentions her as being a Professor at Oxford University, a quick search confirmed that my annoyance was not off base.
She was apparently removed as the director of the Royal Institution ("one of Britain’s oldest and most venerable scientific institutions", according to the Times) earlier this year, and she "is understood to have consulted employment lawyers about the decision, which she is considering challenging." Also from the same Times story:
>>"Lady Greenfield’s departure follows heavy losses incurred by the RI during a £22 million refurbishment project she masterminded, which left it so short of funds that its auditors have raised questions about its ability to continue operating.
...
RI sources told The Times that its trustees considered that its precarious finances meant the organisation could no longer afford to employ a senior scientist as a full-time director."<<
And here she is, boldly declaring
"a ***similar level of sponsorship***, effort and diversity'' should be invested in the area to push it into the mainstream as had been done in ***climate change research and debate***." I wonder if she learned anything about operating on a tight budget - both financially and ecologically.
I think people should stick to their area of expertise and not throw around words like "climate change research and debate", because that only raises questions of her understanding of the urgency of tackling climate change.
I know I'm pulling stuff from this Times story just because it happens to support my annoyance, but here's more:
>>"Her unconventional approach to courting publicity, however, has annoyed as many scientists as it attracts, some of whom claim that her talent for self-promotion outweighs her scientific credentials. She has been rejected as a candidate for fellowship of the Royal Society, the elite national academy of science."<<
My irritation has to do with her needless trivializing of climate change (if she was serious about it, there was no need for her to travel to Australia to give this inane lecture) and to the careless use of the word "empathy", totally clueless about what leads to imperial conquests in the first place.
Alcyon, I'm with you (see my comment below). There are things about this woman that make me suspicious. And what you said is true: we don't need studies to show what's healthy for us - our instincts and experience tell us!
I've stopped watching TV now because I can't take the fast moving, flashy, over colorful, in your face, commercial - sell!, sell!, sell! - busy pace of it all. My brain doesn't get a rest; I can't relax. When they show TV programs from the past, it's then that I really notice how bad things have become.
As for empathy: I think people are either naturally empathetic or they are not, they either care or they do not. Gadgets may keep empathetic people ignorant of injustices in the real world, but I very much doubt it rewires their in-born sense of morality - or lack of, in the case of politicians and most CEOs. The human brain is just NOT that fragile.
Greenfield turns up to these lectures because she gets paid - she's not doing it out of the goodness of her heart.
And as for her credentials, well, that means nothing. Richard Dawkins is well regarded within the academic "community", but he's on a lifelong mission to convert everyone to atheism (he admits it) - that's hardly scientific! You won't hear Dawkins discuss consciousness because it's impossible to explain, so he just pretends it doesn't exist, that we are nothing more than a mass of particles moving about. The problem is, particles moving about are just particles moving about - they can't create what doesn't exist in the matter universe - conscious experience!
Einstein was rejected by the academic community, yet look what he achieved. Einstein said science will NEVER be able to explain conscious experience (in those days, a debate could still be had).
I'm agnostic, by the way. ;)
But I should add, she is right at a superficial level. When I was a kid, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and I remember thinking, why doesn't America just completely wipe out the Iraqi army? I had been brainwashed with a "mindless" war mentality: Iraqi regime bad, therefore Iraqi soldiers bad - SO KILL THEM ALL!
It was later that I realized many Iraqis were conscripted into the army - so had no choice! - and later still when I found out that the US had armed Iraq, that Kuwait was also a dictatorship, and that everything was so much more complicated than I had originally thought.
So, Greenfield has a point: all these mindless war games, it creates a mentality that cannot grasp the real horrors of war: that there is real suffering going on, that it's not all a game or as clear-cut as one thinks.
However, I didn't lack empathy. I just thought the Iraqi regime was an appalling regime - and as armies are filled with individuals who mindlessly obey orders to kill - what's so wrong with destroying the Iraqi army?
It was a lack of knowledge that had made me "callous" - NOT a brain that had been wired-up wrong.
But what if people become so isolated from their fellow citizens - not physically, but mentally - that they grow up with a complete lack of understanding of each other, in the same way that I lacked an understanding of Iraq? Maybe that is the point Greenfield is making.
So, ironically, in an information age, many kids might actually be growing up in an information vacuum - not just about the world generally, but maybe, also, about each other.
richardstone, you're right. At a superficial level, she is indeed right. Someone mentioned the situation in Korea, and I have seen that too. But I still think that behind such restlessness there is a deeper problem.
My objection mainly arose from her gratuitous mention of climate change - and saying that this area needs the same kind of funding AND debate, so as to take it mainstream. And someone who was happy to accept the title of "Baroness" (CBE or "Commander of the Order of the British Empire") and is happy to enjoy the privileges that come with this peerage somehow loses a whole lot of credibility to talk of empathy, IMO. And I have no doubt that she is talking of "empathy" strictly as a technical term as used in neuroscience, and not in the same fashion that common people use - such as we use it here on CD. So there's a big difference there.
In your other post you say this:
>>"As for empathy: I think people are either naturally empathetic or they are not, they either care or they do not. Gadgets may keep empathetic people ignorant of injustices in the real world, but I very much doubt it rewires their in-born sense of morality - or lack of, in the case of politicians and most CEOs. The human brain is just NOT that fragile."<<
I completely agree. In fact, right this moment, we can only imagine how many socially concerned people and activists are using this very internet and other communication devices to fight for justice and to try and avoid environmental disaster.
There is indeed a very real problem of overload happening. But again, now more people have the chance of learning about concepts such as mindfulness thanks to the internet. There is a very real need to tune out from too much mind activity and to just sit quietly or to get out and go for a walk or some such activity. I can feel that need in my own head, and I can say that without even doing any research!
Can't find much to disagree with in your comment. :p
I never bothered to find anything out about this woman, as I had only read one article of hers, during a search for research papers on consciousness. A miracle I remembered!
Empathy has been hard to sustain even on progressive sites. When I see the flame wars even on this site, I find the word to be a joke.
You mention that the Internet helps people think and be creative. That may be true but it also makes online negativity too easy. The same people engaged in flaming online would most likely never do it as much in the real world. Even if anonymity were to be stripped, it would never be the same as face to face. I too believe that the Internet can be effectively used for good causes such as justice and avoiding environmental disaster but I'm afraid we won't get there what with the Internet getting systematically privatized even as we type. Maybe we deserve to lose the Internet from right to privilege and go back to fighting it out in the real world after all.
So true, Peter Pike. Much to think about in your post... really.
Has anyone considered that the discomfort/difficulties experienced in screen viewing (hyperactivity, loss of concentration for example) may in part be due to the electromagnetic radiation being emitted by these screens?
I am all for such research, but I find this particular hypothesis dubious. Those who speculate on these things tend to ignore factors that almost have to be huge.
If we're talking about Americans, and comparing current teens and twenty-somethings with the boomers, to pick just one group, other identifiable factors would seem very large. Contemporary kids are seldom raised by both parents and very often not raised by one. Both contemporary kids and adults sleep less than people did. Both kids and adults eat far more chemical-laced, fatty and sugary foods.
All of these things make recognizable effects on the occurrence of ADHD in populations. Traumatic childhoods cause problems with empathy.
If contemporary kids concentrate half as well as their parents, then maybe we should ask what video games have done to preserve our poor children's minds.
I Get My Touch Through a Screen
I buy my eye contact at the local strip
where the loss of my wings, desire, competes
with the erasure of the rainbows in my dreams.
There are parts of the brain
that turn like birds in the first high wind
that lifts them over the narrow
parts of the big water. We are shunting the wind
through turbines of isolated steel.
We lay together naked
but forget the sacred animal secrets of arousal.
We will mourn this with a mysterious hunger
for extinct invisible ingredients of the hands
like breath on a cold window, red petals
on the tongues of time, a hurricane of love
that we escaped too soon
to see how the palm of dawn, its mound of Venus,
always begins. Tap in your brief dry poems. No haiku
or the praises of unfulfilled apples
in that Pergatory of lost damp grasps
would settle for such restricted play
in the eruptions of godskin in the peonies.
Even now I make you feel something less than feeling.
So come into my cottage in the oldest cedars
The hammock of our touch is slung
between the trunks of the real cosmos of our gaze
and the stars we can still see, when your hand
brushes the place where my hair stops
cannot be abbreviated.
What's bizarre about this neuroscientist, Greenfield, is - and I think it was her, though I can't be sure - she complained about a lack of empathy amongst the young, but then went on to say - in an interview for a newspaper - that the young need to stop being so concerned about killing animals for food, that they need to be taught that it's natural and get used to it.
So, to her mind, empathy and compassion for humans is good; concern for animals is bad. Becoming a vegetarian, then, must be downright evil.
I smell an agenda, and I don't like it.
Why doesn't she attack the politicians and CEOs for a lack of empathy - most of them grew up without all this technology, yet they are the most psychopathic of all.
richardstone, not sure if you meant this discussion - which is somewhat different from what you've said:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2008/2403368.htm
>>Susan Greenfield: "It is...well the analogy I give, and this might seem a bit far fetched, but bear with me. In the old days anyone eating meat, and this is not a cry for vegetarianism, but anyone eating meat in the old days would have always killed it and/or they were the woman skinned it and butchered it. Nowadays even meat eaters might go Ughh couldn't do that, I'll take it off the supermarket shelf, sanitised in cellophane. Killing something and chopping its arms and legs off and ripping its fur off -- ugh -- no way could I do this. Perhaps in the future and this sounds extreme, someone will say ugh - a real life conversation - oh I couldn't do that, ugh with those pheromones and body language, oh ugh, not knowing what's happening, I'd much rather have this sanitised offline screen persona where I can be anything. You know it might be like that, I do fear that again the brain adapts so if you don't practise you won't be good at it. If you practise you're good at it. You can't expect people to have marvellous empathy and be able to read body language if they haven't had the opportunity to be exposed to social interactions."<<
Anyway, what she says does make sense. It's just that other researchers have shown experimentally how multitasking (across different media such as cellphone, computer, music player, etc.) is actually making the younger generation less efficient in their cognitive ability. In contrast, this lady wants a funding on the scale of what's used for climate change research! What a ridiculous thing to say! Not only that, she even wants a "debate" as in climate change so as to take it mainstream. That is such a nonsensical proposition, considering much of the so-called "debate" on climate change is nothing but a hatchet job by the oil industry-funded denial industry. Why can't she just apply for a research grant, carry out some studies and publish her results in peer-reviewed journals first, and then go on TV and say all these inane things? This has been pointed out by others as well:
"Susan Greenfield sacking: Now the Royal Institution can focus on science"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/jan/11/susan-greenfield-sacking-royal-institution
Apparently she also sued the RI for gender-based discrimination, even though she was let go because she ran the institution into debt because of some expensive refurbishment work. And her supporters called a special general meeting of the Royal Institution to vote on sacking the entire 12-member board of trustees and appoint a new board (but they failed, by an overwhelming vote in favor of keeping the current board). Many scientists warned against such a move, as it would disrupt the functioning of the institution. Overall, I don't find her to be the most credible person to be talking about empathy.
What she says DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. She talks about empathy, but then implies NO EMPATHY FOR ANIMALS - she made a point of saying "this is not a cry for vegetarianism". We are NOT carnivores. We should mostly be eating vegetables. To be disgusted at killing animals IS, actually, normal. What she is talking about is DESENSITIZING children to killing, and then compares that to an acquired skill, which requires practice - interaction with others!
We are programmed to learn a language, and you can only learn a language by interacting with others. That's natural! Babies are, in fact, driven "by their genes" to interact with their environment and with other people - how else do you think babies end up talking? Parents don't teach them - they do it themselves! We are NOT, however, programmed to kill animals - we have NO innate drive to do so. Her analogy is way off the mark.
People on their own feel LONELY - they want company. No one EVER feels a need to kill an animal, only unless there is something wrong with them. Various animals, however, do have an urge to kill - such as cats. We are NOT cats!
We live COMPLETELY ARTIFICIAL LIVES today. If I use her reasoning, we should all go back to living in the jungle - but, if we did, we'd all be disgusted at first, ugh! ugh! ugh!!!!!! So, let's bring children up to live in the jungle, as it's NATURAL AND NORMAL.
We have changed because of our minds, and our minds can also remove unnecessary cruelty to animals. We are NOT constrained by nature anymore. Nature is inherently cruel. We should try to rise above nature.
She's NOT just discussing cognitive ability - she's talking about a brain that has empathy for others - unless they're animals!
Correction: nature isn't inherently cruel - nature just is! But the result has turned out to be inherently cruel - at least to creatures with conscious awareness. ;)
Wow, richardstone, that was nicely argued. You caught her totally gratuitous disclaimer - "and this is not a cry for vegetarianism" - and have shown that what she was arguing for is desensitizing people! I'm impressed, because one has to be alert to catch that. Yes - it takes some major "getting used to" when it comes to "Killing something and chopping its arms and legs off and ripping its fur off". It's not the same as chopping vegetables by any means, for most people at least. In any case, the basic fact remains, as you've pointed out, we are not carnivores by design, although people may argue either mistakenly or cleverly. I once replied on this point, about how our physiology and anatomy are closer to herbivores than to carnivores or omnivores:
"UN Urges Global Move to Meat and Dairy-Free Diet"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/02-7
Time stamp: Alcyon June 6th, 2010 10:14 pm
Edit:
It so happened that someone once again tried to argue that humans evolved as omnivores, and I posted a longer rebuttal with links:
"UN to Hold Crisis Talks on Food Prices as Riots Hit Mozambique"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/04-1
Time stamp: Alcyon September 5th, 2010 7:10 am