A recent FT article shared some data on the increasing challenge that young people have with basic thinking and learning. I suspect it is not just 18 year olds. I credit mobile phones and social media as the prime cause in humans losing the capacity to use their brains well.
How to use your brain well
What is a brain for? We’ve moved beyond evolution’s goal for the brain: survive long enough to procreate.
A brain comes with features that can be put to better use than mere survival.
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Advanced brain usage:
- Imagining a better future
- Deciding to take disciplined action
- Paying attention to feedback
- Improving the quality of your action
- Sharing lessons (best in the form of stories) with your friends
- Asking questions
- Visualisation before action
- Gratitude
- Calming your impulses to stay focussed on what is important
All of these elements of advanced brain usage require time and concentration. Social media is like heroin… short term pleasure or numbness – but long term removal of my potential to contribute to society and my own fulfilment.
Social Media in my pocket is Heroin in my arm
- Dopamine – Both heroin and smartphones/social media trigger dopamine, the brain’s reward chemical. Heroin floods the brain with dopamine artificially. Social media does it via likes, comments, notifications, novelty. Over time, the brain can become less sensitive, needing more stimulation for the same reward. Social media and heroin reduce my ability to experience actual life.
- Craving – A heroin addict craves the next hit and experiences anxiety, restlessness, or physical symptoms when deprived. I see similar behaviours around my phone: anxiety without my phone (feeling naked!), checking it impulsively, noticing “phantom vibrations.”
- Coping Mechanism – Both serve as a coping mechanism: Heroin: escape from emotional pain, trauma, or boredom. Smartphones: escape from momentary discomfort, loneliness, or just silence. The habit can become a default response to stress or boredom, creating dependency… and removing my ability to spend a few minutes in silent reflection.
- Loss of control – Addicts often intend to stop or cut back, but can’t. I say, “I’m spending too much time on my phone in the evenings,” yet I keep scrolling.
- Damages your Future – Heroin is illegal and obviously destructive. Social media is socially accepted and even encouraged. I don’t notice what I am losing by the hours on social media because I am destroying a potential future, rather than losing something that exists today. There is very little that “likes” on facebook does to improve my life in a week.
Keep on reading…
- What’s Happening to Students? by Ted Gioia
- Rigorous Thinking: No Lazy Thinking by Wes Kao