Of the many books that pass through The Chronicle‘s newsroom, this one caught the eye: iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind. Given the recent discussions about technology, learning, and the so-called digital generation over at The Chronicle Review, the book’s theme seemed timely. Mark Bauerlein might feel vindicated by the book’s description of how technology is altering human brains and cognition. Siva Vaidhyanathan might shudder at the characterization of young “digital natives” and old “digital immigrants.”
The book was written by Gary Small, a prominent neuroscientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, and his wife, Gigi Vorgan, a television writer and actress. They’ve teamed up before on self-help books you’d probably recognize, like The Memory Bible and The Memory Prescription. iBrain is essentially a self-help book, too — one that that offers advice on bridging what the authors call the “deeply divided brain gap between younger and older minds.” As people spend more time online and less time in the “real world,” the health of our society — even the fate of the world — may hang in the balance, the authors say in the opening pages:
As the brain evolves and shifts its focus toward new technological skills, it drifts away from fundamental social skills, such as reading facial expressions during conversation or grasping the emotional context of a subtle gesture. A Stanford University study found that for every hour we spend on our computers, traditional face-to-face interaction time with other people drops by nearly 30 minutes. With the weakening of the brain’s neural circuitry controlling human contact, our social interactions may become awkward, and we tend to misinterpret, and even miss subtle, nonverbal messages. Imagine how the continued slipping of social skills might affect an international summit meeting ten years from now when a misread facial cue or a misunderstood gesture could make the difference between escalating military conflict or peace.
Since most of us here at The Chronicle are not neuroscientists or diplomats, we’ll leave it to readers to judge whether this sounds like hyperbole. (We should note that a nuanced and detailed treatment of this topic appears in Conversation: A History of a Declining Art, by Stephen Miller. Mr. Miller says that gizmos like iPods act like “conversation-avoidance devices”: It’s hard to have spontaneous conversations with strangers with music streaming out of your earbuds.)
iBrain blasts through issues like Internet addiction, online-porn obsession, and multitasking before getting to the pop-psych self-help portion. Some might love this. Some might laugh. We’re just letting you know about it. —Scott Carlson
