Digital dementia

Digital dementia is not a joke, but a diagnosis. The term “digital dementia” came from South Korea, which was the first to embark on the country's digitization. Today, 83.8% of South Koreans have Internet access, 73% of Koreans have a smartphone (56.4% in the United States, 36.2% in Russia). In 2007, specialists began to notice that more and more teenagers from the digital generation suffer from memory loss, attention disorder, cognitive impairment, depression and depression, and low levels of self-control. The study showed that in the brain of these patients there are changes similar to those that occur after a traumatic brain injury or at an early stage of dementia - dementia that usually develops in old age.

Mass insanity on smartphones and other digital gadgets is an inevitable consequence of the technological revolution that has engulfed all countries. Smartphones are rapidly conquering the world, more precisely, practically conquered it. According to the forecasts of The Wall Street Journal, in 2017, 84.8% of the population of South Korea will become owners of smartphones (80% of Germany, Japan, the USA, 69% of Russia). Along with smartphones and other gadgets, digital dementia virus penetrates all countries and all sectors of society. He does not know the geographical and social boundaries.

Heroes

On the request of digital dementia (digital dementia), Google will give out about 10 million links in English (to the request of digital dementia research about 5 million), and on digital dementia a little more than 40 thousand links in Russian. We have not realized this problem yet, because we later joined the digital world. There is almost no systematic and focused research in this area in Russia either. However, in the West, the number of scientific publications on the impact of digital technologies on brain development and the health of the new generation is increasing year by year. Neuroscientists, neuroscientists, brain physiologists, pediatricians, psychologists and psychiatrists view the problem from different angles. So gradually accumulated disparate research results, which should be formed into a coherent picture.

This process takes time and more extensive statistics, it has just begun. Nevertheless, the general contours of the picture are already visible thanks to the efforts of renowned experts who summarize the scientific data and try to convey their understandable interpretation to the public. Among them are the director of the psychiatric hospital at the University of Ulm (Germany), the founder of the Center for Neuroscience and Learning, the psychiatrist and neurophysiologist Manfred Spitzer (“Digitale Demenz: wie wir uns und unsere Kinder um Vers Versndndenenen”, München: Droemer, 2012; translation Anti-Brain. Digital Technologies and the Brain, Moscow, AST Publishing House, 2014), renowned British neuroscientist, professor at Oxford University, Baroness Susan Greenfield ("Mind Change. Random House, 2014), young British biologist Dr. Arik Sigman, who prepared a special report in 2011 for the European Parliament «The Impact Of Screen Media On Children: A Eurovision for parliament». And also, Sue Palmer, a specialist in preschool education (“Toxic Childhood”, Orion, 2007), American pediatrician Chris Rowhn (“Virtual Child: The Terrifying Childhood”, Sunshine Coast Occupational Therapy Inc., 2010). ) other.

Technical progress cannot be halted unless a global collapse happens. And no one wants to be known as a retrograd, conservative, non-modern man, an opponent of new technologies. Nevertheless, the enlightening heroes listed above have not only written books that have become bestsellers, but also spare no time in speaking in the Bundestag, in the House of Lords and in other high meetings, on radio and television. What for? To tell society about the risks that new digital technologies bear to the younger generation, which must be taken into account by politicians, economists and parents who make decisions. In hard public discussions, it sometimes comes to non-parliamentary expressions. In any case, the “obscurantists” label has already been stuck to Manfred Spitzer, and he regularly receives threats by email. Fortunately, he does not care. He has six children for whom he does all this. Manfred Spitzer admits that after years he doesn’t want to reproach his grown children: “Dad, you knew all this! Why was he silent? ”

Let us immediately take note that none of the listed authors has anything against new digital technologies as such: yes, they provide convenience, speed up and facilitate many activities. And all of these experts, of course, use the Internet, mobile phones and other devices that help in the work. We are talking only about the fact that new technologies have a downside: they are dangerous for childhood and adolescence, and this must be taken into account. The steam locomotive, the steamship, the airplane, the passenger car were also brilliant inventions of mankind, which changed its habitat, although they caused heated discussions in their time. But we don’t put the baby in the driver’s seat, don’t give him the steering wheel, but wait until he grows up and forms an adult. So why are we, not having time to tear the baby from the breast, put the tablet in his hands? We put the displays in kindergartens and at each school desk?

Manufacturers of digital devices require unequivocal evidence of the possible danger of gadgets and they themselves order research to show that smartphones, tablets and the Internet are only for children. Let us leave aside the arguments about custom research. Real scientists are always careful in their statements and assessments, it is an integral part of their mentality. Manfred Spitzer and Susan Greenfield also demonstrate in their books the correctness in their judgments, the debatableness of one or another aspect of the problem. Yes, we know a lot about how the brain develops and works, how our body functions. But not all, and full knowledge is hardly achievable.

However, in my opinion, judging by the books and articles read, evidence of the potential danger of digital technologies for the growing brain is more than enough. But in this case it is not even important, because besides research there is an intuition of mastery, an intuition of professionals who have dedicated most of their lives to a particular field of science. The accumulated knowledge is enough for them to foresee the development of events and possible consequences. So why not listen to the opinions of smart and experienced people?

Time, brain and plasticity

The main factor in this whole story is time. It is terrible to imagine that a seven-year-old child in Europe spent more than a year at the screens (24 hours a day), and an 18-year-old European - more than four years! Arik Sigman’s report to the European Parliament begins with these shocking figures. Today, an average western teenager spends about “eight hours a day” talking to screens. This time is stolen from life because it is wasted. It is not spent on talking with parents, reading books and music, on sports and "Cossacks-robbers" - no matter what the emerging brain of a child requires.

You will say that time is now different, therefore children are different and their brains are different. Yes, the time is different, but the brain is the same as a thousand years ago - 100 billion neurons, each of which is connected with ten thousand of its own kind. These 2% of our body (by weight) still consume more than 20% of energy. And while we didn’t put chips into our heads instead of the brain, we carry in ourselves 1.3-1.4 kilograms of gray and white matter, in a form similar to the core of a walnut. It is this perfect body, which keeps the memory of all the events of our life, our skills and our talent, and determines the essence of the unique personality.

Neurons communicate with each other, exchanging electrical signals, each of which lasts one thousandth of a second. It is not yet possible to “see” a dynamic picture of the brain at one time or another, because modern brain-scanning technologies provide images with a resolution of seconds, the latest devices give a tenth of a second. “Therefore, brain scans are like Victorian photos. They show static houses, but exclude any moving objects - people, animals that moved too fast to hold the camera. The houses are beautiful, but they do not give a comprehensive picture - the whole picture, ”writes Susan Greenfield. Nevertheless, we can follow the changes taking place in the brain over time. Moreover, today a technique has emerged that allows one to observe the activity of a single neuron using electrodes placed in the brain.

Research gives us an understanding of how our main body develops and works. The stages of maturation and development of the brain have been perfected by hundreds of thousands of years; no one has canceled this established system. No digital and cellular technology can change the period of gestation of a human fetus - nine months is normal. It is the same with the brain: it must mature, grow four times, build neural connections, strengthen the synapses, acquire a “wire jacket” so that the signal in the brain passes quickly and without loss. All this gigantic work takes place before the age of twenty. This does not mean that the brain does not develop further. But after 20-25 years, he does it more slowly, more precisely, completing the foundation laid by 20 years with details.

One of the unique properties of the brain is plasticity, or the ability to adapt to the environment in which it is located, that is, to learning. For the first time philosopher Alexander Bane spoke about this amazing property of the brain in 1872. And twenty-two years later, the great Spanish anatomist Santiago Ramon y Cahal, who became the founder of modern neuroscience, coined the term "plasticity." Thanks to this property, the brain builds itself, responding to signals from the outside world. Every event, every human action, that is, every experience of it, engenders processes in our main body that should remember this experience, evaluate it, give the correct reaction from the point of view of evolution. So the environment and our actions form the brain.

In 2001, British newspapers flew around the story of Luke Johnson. Immediately after the birth of Luke, it turned out that his right arm and leg did not move. Doctors have determined that this is the result of injury to the left side of the brain during pregnancy or at the time of birth. However, literally in a few years, Luke was able to fully use his right and left foot, because their functions were restored. How? During the first two years of life with Luke, they did special exercises by which the brain modernized itself — rebuilt the nerve pathways so that the signal went around the damaged portion of brain tissue. The persistence of the parents and the plasticity of the brain did their job.

Science has accumulated a lot of amazing research illustrating the fantastic plasticity of the brain. In the 1940s, the physiologist Donald Hebb took several laboratory rats to his home and released him into the wild. A few weeks later, the rats who had been released were examined using traditional tests - they tested the ability to solve problems in the maze. All of them showed excellent results, which greatly differed for the better from the results of their fellows who did not leave the laboratory boxes.

Since then, a huge number of experiments have been performed. And they all prove that a rich environment inviting for research, allowing you to discover something new, is a powerful factor in the development of the brain. Then, in 1964, the term environmental enrichment appeared. The rich external environment causes a range of changes in the brains of animals, all changes with a plus sign: the size of the neurons increases, the brain itself (weight) and its cortex, the cells have more dendritic processes that expand its ability to interact with other neurons, synapses are thickened, connections are strengthened. The production of new nerve cells responsible for learning and memory in the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus and the cerebellum also increases, while the number of spontaneous suicides of nerve cells (apoptosis) in the hippocampus of rats is reduced by 45%! All this is more pronounced in young animals, but also in adults.

The influence of the environment can be so strong that even genetic determinations have faltered. In 2000, the article "Delaying the appearance of Huntington's disease in mice" was published in Nature (Van Dellen et al., "Delaying the onset of Huntington's in mice", 2000, 404, 721-722, doi: 10.1038 / 35008142). Today, this study has become a classic. Using genetic engineering, researchers created a line of mice suffering from Huntington's disease. In humans, in the early stages, it manifests itself in a lack of coordination, irregular movements, cognitive impairment, and then leads to the disintegration of the personality - atrophy of the cerebral cortex. The control group of mice, which lived in standard laboratory boxes, gradually faded away, showing constant and rapid deterioration from test to test. The experimental group was placed in other conditions - a large space with a lot of objects for research (wheels, stairs and much more). In such a stimulating environment, the disease began to manifest itself much later, and the degree of movement disorder was less. As you can see, even in the case of a genetic disease, nature and upbringing can successfully interact.

Give the brain food

So, the accumulated results show that animals spending time in an enriched environment demonstrate significantly better results in spatial memory, show a general increase in cognitive functions and the ability to learn, solve problem problems and speed information processing. They have a low anxiety level. Moreover, an enriched external environment weakens past negative experiences and even substantially weakens the genetic burden. The external environment leaves the most important traces in our brains. Just as muscles grow during training, so do neurons, acquiring a large number of processes, which means more developed connections with other cells.

If the environment affects the structure of the brain, can active thinking, “adventures of the spirit”, influence it? Can! In 1995, neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone (Alvaro Pascual-Leone), together with his research team, performed one of the most impressive and frequently cited experiments. The researchers formed three groups of adult volunteers who never played the piano, and placed them in the same experimental conditions. The first group was the control. The second did the exercises to learn how to play the piano with one hand. Five days later, scientists scanned the subjects' brains and found significant changes in members of the second group. However, the third group was the most remarkable. The participants were only required to mentally imagine that they were playing the piano, but these were serious, regular mental exercises. Changes in their brain showed an almost similar picture with those (the second group) who physically trained to play the piano.

We ourselves form our brain, which means our future. All our actions, the solution of complex problems and deep reflections - everything leaves traces in our brain. “Nothing can replace the fact that children receive from their own, free and independent thinking when they explore the physical world and face something new,” says British psychology professor Tanya Biron.

Since 1970, the radius of activity of children, or the amount of space around the house in which children freely explore the world around them, has been reduced by 90%. The world has shrunk almost to the size of the tablet screen. Now the children do not drive through the streets and courtyards, do not climb trees, do not let the ships in ponds and puddles, do not jump over stones, do not run in the rain, do not chat with each other for hours, and sit, buried in a smartphone or tablet, - " walk ”, otsizhivaya ass. But they need to train and build muscle, become familiar with the risks of the outside world, learn to interact with peers and empathize with them. “It's amazing how quickly a completely new type of environment was formed, where taste, smell and touch are not stimulated, where most of the time we sit at the screens, rather than walking in the open air and do not spend time talking face to face,” writes Susan Greenfield . There is something to worry about.

The more external stimuli in childhood and adolescence, the more actively and quickly the brain is formed. That is why it is so important that the child physically, and not virtually explore the world: dig in the ground in search of worms, listen to unfamiliar sounds, break objects to understand what was inside, disassemble and unsuccessfully assemble devices, play musical instruments, run and swim Racing, afraid, admired, surprised, puzzled, found a way out, made decisions ... This is what the growing brain needs today, like a thousand years ago. He needs food - experience.

However, not only food. Our brain needs sleep, although it is not sleeping at all at this time, but is actively working. All the experience acquired during the day, the brain must be carefully reworked in a relaxed atmosphere, when nothing distracts him, because the person is immovable. During this time, the brain performs the most important actions that Spitzer describes in terms of email.The hippocampus empties its mailbox, sorts the letters and puts them into folders in the cerebral cortex, where the processing of letters is completed and the answers to them are formed. That is why the morning of the evening is wiser. DI Mendeleev really could see the Periodic Table for the first time in a dream, and Kekule - the formula of benzene. Decisions often come in a dream, because the brain does not sleep.

The inability to get out of the Internet and social networks, break away from computer games drastically reduces the sleep time in adolescents and leads to serious violations. What kind of brain development and training is there, if you have a headache in the morning, fatigue overcomes, although the day is just beginning, and no school work is going on.

But how can sitting on the Internet and social networks change the brain? First, the monotonous pastime sharply limits the number of external stimuli, that is, food for the brain. He does not get enough experience to develop the most important areas responsible for empathy, self-control, decision-making, etc. What doesn’t work dies. In a person who has ceased to walk, the leg muscles atrophy. A person who does not train the memory by any kind of memorization (and why? Everything in the smartphone and the navigator!) Will inevitably have problems with memory. The brain can not only develop, but also degrade, its living tissues can atrophy. An example of this is digital dementia.

Канадский нейропсихолог Брайан Колб (Bryan Kolb), один из ведущих экспертов в области развития мозга, так говорит о предмете своего исследования: «Все, что меняет ваш мозг, меняет ваше будущее и то, кем вы будете. Ваш уникальный мозг — не только продукт ваших генов. Он формируется вашим опытом и образом жизни. Любые изменения в мозгу отражаются в поведении. Справедливо и обратное: поведение может изменять мозг».

Мифы

In September 2011, the respected British newspaper The Daily Telegraph published an open letter to 200 British teachers, psychiatrists, and neurophysiologists. They tried to draw the attention of society and decision-makers to the problem of immersion of children and teenagers in the digital world, which dramatically affects their ability to learn. Ask any teacher, and he will tell you that it has become incomparably more difficult to teach children. They do not remember well, can not concentrate, quickly tired, it is necessary to turn away - immediately grab a smartphone. In such a situation it is difficult to expect that the school will teach the child to think, because there is simply no material in his brain for thinking.

Although many opponents will object to our heroes: the opposite is true, children are now so clever, they take much more information from the Internet than we did at one time. Only here the benefits of this zero, since the information is not remembered.

Memorization is directly related to the depth of information processing. Manfred Spitzer gives an illustrative example - the test for memorization. This simple study can perform any. Three groups of teenagers were offered this strange text:

throw - HAMMER - glows - eye - BELLING - run - BLOOD - STONE - think - CAR - mite - LOVE - cloud - DRINK - see - book - FIRE - BONE - eat - GRASS - sea - roll - iron - BREAK.

The participants of the first group were asked to indicate which words were written in lower case letters and which words were capitalized. The task to the participants of the second group was more difficult: to indicate which of the listed is a noun and that is a verb. The most difficult part went to the participants of the third group: they had to separate the animate from the inanimate. A few days later, all testers were asked to recall words from this text with which they worked. In the first group, 20% of words were remembered, in the second - 40%, in the third - 70%!

Понятно, что в третьей группе основательнее всего работали с информацией, здесь приходилось больше думать, потому она и запомнилась лучше. Именно этим занимаются на уроках в школе и при выполнении домашнего задания, именно это и формирует память. Глубина же обработки информации, почерпнутой подростком, порхающим с сайта на сайт в Интернете, близка к нулю. Это скольжение по поверхности. Нынешние школьные и студенческие «рефераты» — лишнее тому подтверждение: представители поколения Copy and Paste просто копируют куски текста из Интернета, порой даже не прочитывая, и вставляют в итоговый документ. Работа сделана. В голове — пусто. «Раньше тексты читали, сейчас их бегло просматривают. Раньше в тему вникали, сейчас скользят по поверхности», — справедливо подмечает Шпитцер.

To say that children have become smarter thanks to the Internet, it is impossible. The current eleven-year-olds perform assignments at the level of eight or nine-year-olds 30 years ago. This is one of the reasons researchers point out: children, especially boys, play more in virtual worlds than outdoors, with tools and things ...

Может быть, нынешние цифровые дети стали более креативными, как принято сейчас говорить? Похоже, что и это не так. В 2010 году в Колледже Вильгельма и Марии в Виргинии (США) выполнили гигантское исследование — проанализировали результаты около 300 тысяч творческих испытаний (!), в которых участвовали американские дети в разные годы, начиная с 1970-го. Их творческие способности оценивали с помощью тестов Торренса, простых и наглядных. Ребенку предлагают нарисованную геометрическую фигуру, например овал. Он должен сделать эту фигуру частью изображения, которое придумает и нарисует сам. Другой тест — ребенку предлагают набор картинок, на которых стоят разные загогулинки, обрывки каких-то фигур. Задача ребенка — достроить эти обрывки, чтобы получить цельное изображение чего-то, любой его фантазии. И вот результат: начиная с 1990 года творческие способности американских детей пошли на убыль. Они менее способны производить уникальные и необычные идеи, у них слабее чувства юмора, хуже работают воображение и образное мышление.

But maybe everything justifies the multitasking that digital teens are so proud of? Maybe it has a positive effect on mental performance? A modern teenager is doing homework and sending text messages at the same time, talking on the phone, checking e-mail and watching YouTube in the corner of his eye. But there is nothing to please yourself.

In any case, research at Stanford University suggests otherwise. Among junior students, researchers selected two groups: multitasks (by their own estimates) and few tasks. Both groups were shown on the screen for 100 milliseconds three geometric shapes — two rectangles and a plus sign — and asked to be remembered. Then, after a pause of 900 milliseconds, they showed almost the same image in which one of the figures slightly changed position. The subject had only to press the “Yes” button if something changed in the picture, or “No” if the picture is the same. It was quite simple, but the multi-taskers coped with this task a little worse than the few tasks. Then they complicated the situation - they began to divert the attention of the tested, adding extra rectangles to the drawing, but of a different color - first two, then four, then six, but the task itself remained the same. And here the difference was noticeable. It turned out that multi-tasking confusing distracting maneuvers, it is more difficult for them to focus on the task, they are often mistaken.

“I fear that digital technologies will infantilize the brain, turning it into a kind of brain for young children who are attracted by buzzing sounds and bright lights that cannot concentrate and live in the present moment,” says Susan Greenfield.

Salvation of drowning people is the work of ... parents

Madness on digital technologies, the inability to part with a smartphone, tablet or laptop for a minute entails many other devastating consequences for children and adolescents. Sitting for eight hours a day just behind the screens inevitably leads to obesity, the epidemic of which among children we observe, problems with the musculoskeletal system, various neuralgic disorders. Psychiatrists note that more and more children are prone to mental disorders, severe depression, not to mention cases of severe dependence on the Internet. The more time adolescents spend on social networks, the more they feel lonely. Employees of Cornell University in studies of 2006–2008 showed that the introduction of children to the screens from early childhood serves as a trigger for autism spectrum disorders. Socialization of adolescents who draw on patterns of behavior on the Internet and social networks, collapses, the ability to empathize rapidly decreases. Plus unmotivated aggression ... Our heroes write and speak about all this, and not only them.

Gadget makers are trying to ignore this research, and this is understandable: digital technology is a giant business, aimed at children as the most promising audience. What parent will refuse to his beloved child in the tablet? It is so fashionable, so modern, and the child wants to get it. After all, the child should be given the best, it should not be “worse than others.” But, as noted by Arik Sigman, children love candy, but this is no reason to feed them candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So the love of tablets is not a reason to introduce them everywhere in kindergartens and schools. Everything has its time. That's what Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is worried: “I still think that reading a book is the best way to really learn something. And I worry that we are losing it. "

Do not be afraid that your child will miss the time and will not master all these gadgets in time. Experts say that no special abilities are required for such mastering. As S.V.Medvedev, the director of the Institute of the Human Brain of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said, knocking on the keys can be taught to a monkey. Digital devices are toys for adults, more precisely, not toys, but a tool that helps in work. We, adults, all these screens are not terrible. Although they should not be abused either, it is better to memorize and search for a road without a navigator to train your memory and orientation skills in space is an excellent exercise for the brain (see the story about the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry and Life, No. 11 , 2014). The best thing you can do for your child is not to buy him a tablet or smartphone until he learns properly and forms his brain, says Manfred Spitzer.

And what about the gurus of the digital industry? Don't they worry about their children? Even as worried and therefore take appropriate action. A shock to many was an article in the New York Times in September of this year, in which Nick Bilton quotes a fragment of his 2010 interview with Steve Jobs:

“- Your children are probably crazy about the iPad?

- No, they do not use it. We limit the time children spend at home on new technologies. ”

It turns out that Steve Jobs forbade his three teenage children to use gadgets at night and at weekends. None of the children could appear at dinner with a smartphone in their hands.

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of the American magazine Wired, one of the founders of 3DRobotics, restricts his five children to using digital devices. Anderson's rule - no screens and gadgets in the bedroom! “I, like no one else, see the danger in an excessive hobby of the Internet. I myself faced this problem and do not want my children to have the same problems. ”

Evan Williams, creator of Blogger and Twitter, allows two of his sons to use tablets and smartphones for no longer than an hour a day. And Alex Constantinople, director of OutCast Agency, limits the use of tablets and PCs in the house to 30 minutes a day. The restriction applies to children 10 and 13 years. The youngest five year old son does not use gadgets at all.

Here you have the answer to the question "what to do?". It is said that today in the USA, in families of educated people, the fashion began to spread to ban the use of gadgets by children. It is right. Nothing can replace biological communication between people, live communication between parents and children, teachers with students, peers with peers. Man is a biological and social being. And parents are right a thousand times who take their children to circles, read them books for the night, discuss the readings together, check their homework and force them to redo if done with their left foot, impose restrictions on the use of gadgets. The best investment in the future of the child can not come up.