Off the grid

Earlier this year, five brain researchers journeyed deep into the recesses of southern Utah, to an area along the San Juan River so remote that cell phones don’t work. (That cell phones don’t work in the middle of nowhere is not really shocking; why they don’t work in certain pockets of major metropolitan areas, or certain corners of my condo for that matter, remains a mystery to me. But I digress…) The scientists left behind their laptops, spent their days rafting and hiking, and camped at night under endless stars. Their goal was to understand how digital devices affect the way our brains work and to determine if taking a break from technology can reverse those effects. The group’s experience is the subject of the latest article in the NY Times “Your Brain on Computers” series, and it’s fascinating.

The trip’s organizer, David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah, studies the effect technology has on attention, memory and learning. Understanding how attention works could help in treating things like ADD and depression, he says. Strayer also posits that too much digital stimulation can put otherwise normally functioning people “in a range where they’re not psychologically healthy.”

The scientists at one point discuss a University of Michigan study that found people better learn after walking in the woods than after walking on a busy street. “The study indicates that learning centers in the brain become taxed when asked to process information, even during the relatively passive experience of taking in an urban setting. By extension, some scientists believe heavy multitasking fatigues the brain, draining it of the ability to focus.”

That’s potentially significant stuff in an age where more kids--particularly in big cities, it seems--are being diagnosed with attention and sensory processing disorders. There’s the debate, of course, about whether these are new challenges or they’re just being diagnosed more, but regardless, Strayer argues that being in nature can give the brain the break it needs: “Our senses change. They kind of recalibrate — you notice sounds, like these crickets chirping; you hear the river, the sounds, the smells, you become more connected to the physical environment, the earth, rather than the artificial environment.”

Another point worth noting is the idea that technology has changed our perception of what’s urgent. That little red light on the mobile device has been blinking so much in the past few years that we find ourselves constantly looking to it for the next e-mail message. According to these scientists, that expectation eats into the brain’s working memory. (Finally, a reasonable explanation for where my mind has gone! Of course, there are other possible culprits--lack of sleep, a recent switch to half-caffeinated coffee, early-onset dementia…)

Such distractions have important implications for the way we parent, naturally, a topic discussed in an earlier article (“The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In”) from the same NYT series. Not surprisingly, the more distracted we are by our phones and laptops, the less engaged we are as parents and the less quality time our kids get.

What to do? If we listen to our camping scientist friends, a family vacation in the middle of nowhere might be in order (ever been to Cherry County, Nebraska?). And in terms of addressing the problem on a daily basis, the mom at the end of the Plugged-In Parents article had what seems to me to be a pretty workable solution: establishing an e-mail and Internet ban for a few hours each day. I’ve also toyed with the idea of cutting Web and e-mail service on my cell phone and using it only for calls—a decent way to save more than a few bucks each month, too--though I’m not sure I’m prepared to take that plunge. Either way, I know I want to try to get a grip on this “device distraction” now. My kids are little, so it’s only a one-sided battle (with myself) as of now. It won’t be long before they, too, will be distracted by the phone, the computer, the TV, the iPod and whatever else is on its way.

How concerned are you about the effect technology has on you and your little one(s)? Do you do anything to take a break from it? Does it require traveling to a remote locale, or are there ways to give ourselves some time off each day?