i-Minds: How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media are Changing our Brains, our Behavior, and the Evolution of our Species
240
i-Minds: How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media are Changing our Brains, our Behavior, and the Evolution of our Species
240eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
Many of us would no more go out without our cell phone than we would leave the house without clothes. We live our lives on social media, and PDAs, tablets, computers and other devices are completely integrated into our global culture. From connectedness to accessibility and instant access to information, a wealth of benefits accompanies this digital revolution. But what about the cost?
Weaving together history, popular literature, media and industry hype, sociology and psychology, and observations from over eighteen years of clinical practice and research, Dr. Mari Swingle explores the pervasive influence of i-technology. Engaging and entertaining yet scientifically rigorous, i-Minds demonstrates:
How constant connectivity is rapidly changing our brains What dangers are posed to children and adults alike in this brave new world The positive steps we can take to embrace new technology while protecting our well-being and steering our future in a more human direction
This extraordinary book is a virtually indispensable look at a revolution where the only constant is change—food for thought about which aspects of technology we should embrace, what we should unequivocally reject, and the many facets of the digital era that we should now be debating.
Dr. Mari K. Swingle is a neurotherapist and behavioral specialist who practices at the highly-regarded Swingle Clinic. She holds a BA in Visual Arts, an MA in language education, and an MA and PhD in clinical psychology, and has won numerous awards for her post-doctoral work on the effects of i-technology on brain function.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781550926194 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New Society Publishers |
| Publication date: | 05/16/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Sales rank: | 731,243 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Introduction
Societal Shifting
Every era has an innovation that changes the face of society: the way we
think, the way we act and interact as individuals, as a community, and
as a culture. As the innovation is introduced, it tends to be greeted with
elation. As the innovation becomes integrated and the first societal
shifts become apparent, some start to question the balance of benefit
and loss in the equation of change. We are now in such a place with
digital media.
Cell phones, PCs, and the Internet are now completely integrated
in global culture, i-culture: welcomed by most, resisted by some, the
impact apparent for all. There is great change for the better, but now, a
few decades into the assimilation, there is also arguably evidence of an
equally negative impact. The darker side of the digital era has emerged.
Be it due to naïveté or denial, the negative influences of digital
media are expanding, blindly accepted by most — educators, business,
parents, and partners, who later wonder what went terribly wrong. This
book will explore such changes and hopefully provide food for thought
on what we should embrace and accept, what we should unequivocally
reject, and what aspects of the digital era we should now be debating.
The debate, unfortunately, often gets sidetracked into generational
arguments — a generational divide wherein the older complain of the younger becoming progressively stupid, rude, and isolating with
i-tech at the expense of interpersonal or face-to-face relationships. The
young, like any generation before, equally find their pre–i-tech elders
ignorant of advancement, judgmental, invasive, and abrasive in their
views, feeling they should stop pontificating and get with the times.
But we are all missing the point. By sticking staunchly to our positions,
we risk missing the fine print: the subtle and not-so-subtle changes in
human behavior and underlying brain function that are unequivocally
changing all that we are, and the world that we live in. Here we all owe
it to ourselves, and the generations that will follow, to open our eyes,
look up, and examine change in action, to arm ourselves with information
on who we are, and what we wish to become in this new, and yes,
wonderful, i-mediated world.
...and now the dark side.
First Hints of a Problem
Over the past two decades, a select group of scholars and health care
practitioners began to systematically note the emergence of a new set
of issues seemingly associated with excessive usage and otherwise unhealthy
applications of i-technologies. Today the effects are confirmed,
notably in the realms of sexuality, socialization, education, and failure
to launch. For children, adolescents, and youth, excessive usage of digital
media is now highly associated with learning disabilities, emotional
dysregulation, as well as conduct or behavioral disorders. For adults, it
is highly correlated with anxiety, depression, sexual dysfunction and
sexual deviation, insomnia, social isolation, disaffected pair bonding,
marital conflict, and compromised work performance. In clinical practice,
I am also starting to note some rather frightening connections
with thwarted emotional and cognitive development in the very young.
Opening Our Eyes
I would like to think we are wiser now as a global culture, having
learned from past mistakes, that we no longer blindly continue on
paths of innovation without looking up to examine the potential toll.
My last eighteen years working in a clinical environment, however, are telling me otherwise. Unlike excessive consumption or abuse of other
substances such as alcohol, food, or drugs, for many, the effects of excessive
usage of digital media are rarely perceived as contributing to,
never mind as causing, a specific ailment, condition, or conflict.
All this said, digital media is here to stay and has unquestionably
advanced our world. It is not negative by nature. This is not the claim
that this book will make; not by far. But what the Internet and all digital
media give, they can also take away. How we use it, interact with
it, and depend on it vis-à-vis our “real” world and real relationships
within are key.
The questions we now need to start asking ourselves are not what
the technologies are positively contributing, as these contributions are
rather evident, but rather what the technologies are replacing or taking
away: an older technology, a behavior, a skill, a relationship, our
compassion, values...intelligence? It is time to widen our focus to the
broader effects of i-technology in all the branches of our day-to-day
lives. It is time to ask ourselves what i-media is truly facilitating.
In This Book
This book is written from a therapist’s perspective. As a practicing clinician,
I have based i-Minds upon what has passed my clinical floor:
how i-media is affecting children, partners, family, learning. The list
is long.
Weaving through larger societal shifts, including history, research
and hard data, developmental theory, literature on brain function and
mental illness, professional reflections, popular literature, and observations
from clinical practice, I will illustrate how the medium is influencing
our thinking and our processing — our functioning as a whole.
I will look at microcultures, such as high school and bullying, parenting
circles, and dating, as well as shifts in macroculture affecting
work, sexuality, mental health, learning, play, creative process, attachment,
and development itself. I will explore the increase in apathy and
general hyperarousal in the masses associated with excessive applications
of i-tech. I will also explore the extreme: a new and growing
phenomenon threatening to become the addiction of the twenty-first century, referred to as Internet addiction (IA), digital addiction, or i-addiction.
The i-phenomenon will be explored in tandem from three distinct
angles.
• First, I will explore the big picture of what is affecting us all, regardless
of age, gender, culture, or creed.
• I will also present what appears to be generation specific — not exclusively
by chronological age itself, but rather by age as it relates to
the rate of the assimilation of the technologies.
• Lastly, I will discuss the effects of digital media in terms of level of
immersion: the way, or more specifically the “why” and the “how,”
some of us are using the medium to the inclusion or exclusion of
other activities or relationships.
For those of you who are more scientifically or research oriented, supplemental
details are presented in sections labeled Scientific Corner. For
those of you who are not, these sections can be skipped without losing
the general flow. Definitions of some potentially unfamiliar terms and
key points will also be included within the text in italics.
Interspersed throughout, I will sprinkle advice: solutions, options,
and actions one can choose to follow if situations and vignettes seem
all too familiar. My goal is to educate, to ensure that i-tech remains a
solid complement to all that we are, integrated with but not overriding
the human element in cognition and development, work, industry, education,
socialization, and play.
Great Beginnings
Subtle Shifts in Behavior
But first, how did this all start?
The World Wide Web, as we first called it, was a military innovation
that, when it crossed over into civilian life, was embraced as changing
the world only for the better. Indeed, in its beginnings, it was most
positive. First gaining a foothold in academic communities in the early
1990s, the Internet was the ideal tool for research and learning.1 Soon,
no more restrictions on library hours, no more trudging across campus
only to find someone else had reserved the book or article you needed.
It was also the ideal form of international communication. No more
fallen land lines, outrageous telephone bills, and one could see, never
mind merely talk to, colleagues, friends, and family while traveling or
studying away from home.
The Web, as promptly nicknamed, was a most novel and efficient
form of communication; it was not location-specific, and was accessible
for free with any PC and phone line. In the 1990s many of us had,
and used, university-funded email and later messaging, as the most
efficient form of communication long before we had, or could afford,
cell phones.
It soon became apparent, however, that the Internet was also changing
“local” behavior. In my own graduate school experience, friends
started sending diatribes of thought via email. Discussions we would
usually have gathered for and debated over a coffee or a beer were now
sequential monologues sent via computer. Although initially most entertaining,
some of us, including myself, noted the reduction of face-to-face social interaction and felt something was amiss. Although I did
not precisely see it for what it was at the time, I was remotely aware of
the development of a bit of a void. I, for one, was missing the reward or
pleasure of the face-to-face social engagement.
Thereafter, some of us became quite engrossed in these great email
dialogues, others less — still choosing to gather weekly in person. A
small and, at the time, barely notable division of social behaviors, and
hence social circles, started within our tiny university network.
Viewed in retrospect, my experience as a master’s student in the
mid-1990s was not unique. Very early on, anecdotal reports started to
emerge that indeed the Internet was changing social behavior. A rather
amusing incident in circulation was how a group of international students
was observed in a dorm, laughing and engaging, each with their
own PC, rather than socializing with each other. At the time, we found
this behavior peculiar and, hence, the story amusing. Why would you
choose to play with a computer or communicate with others abroad,
when you had friends, company, sitting right next to you? The end of
the story was, for its time, a seemingly perfect double twist. Indeed
these students were socializing with each other. They were not engaging
at all with friends from abroad, but rather with each other in the
same room via computer interface.
At the time, the behavior raised some eyebrows, but was also simply
attributed to the harmless pursuit of novelty of the new medium.
What we did not see, however, was that this was a great foreshadowing
of things to come, something none of us, at the time, would ever
have dreamed of. Now, merely twenty years later, this behavior is not
unusual at all: digital interface has become the primary mode of communication
for all youth.
From Subtle to Extreme — First Hints of Problematic Usage
Beyond amusement, very early on, it was noted that high Internet usage
could also have quite serious detrimental effects.2 Parallel to my own
graduate school observation of social division, for some, Internet
usage was leading to social avoidance and isolation as opposed to broader socialization networks, albeit done under the precise illusion of communication
and social interaction.
Similarly, in academia, the ideal tool for research and scholarship
was negatively affecting academic performance and class attendance.
Students were skipping class and handing in assignments late, having
stayed up too late playing or “researching” on the Web. For a select
group, time that was previously dedicated to work, school, chores, or
social interaction with family, friends, and peers was now dedicated to
Internet usage — to the neglect of other activities and interactions.
The medium was showing potential to have exactly the opposite of
its intended effect: reducing, as opposed to broadening, the scope of
socialization, work, scholastic and general life efficiency. For some academics,
questions started to arise as to whether this form of excessive
Internet usage had the properties of addiction.3,4,5,6,7 The answer now,
over twenty years later, is clearly “yes.”
Table of Contents
Introduction1. Technological Integration versus Technological Interference
2. The Pull
3. The Biological Science – What’s Really Going on in Our Brains?
4. Boxed In – Anxiety in the Masses
5. From Digital Natives to i-Kids
6. The Story of Alpha
7. The Good, the Bad and the Neutral
8. From i-Kids to i-Brains
9. Learning, Play, and Parenting – Conflicting Needs in a Busy, Busy World
10. Socialization Part A – Child’s Play
11. Socialization Part B – Adult Play (Sex and Sexuality)
12. Community, Communication, Digital Mediation, and Friendship
13. i-Addiction – A New World
14. Final Thoughts
Epilogue
Appendix
Notes
Index
About the Author
What People are Saying About This
"In this meticulously researched and necessary book Mari Swingle shows how the i-world is hijacking young people's minds and even their brains. Her practical advice guides us to become masters, not servants, of the technology we are bequeathing to our children." —Gabor Maté M.D., co-author, Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers and author, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction
"Dr. Mari Swingle brilliantly explains how digital displays and social media are changing our brains by capturing our evolutionary survival patterns. i-Minds is a must read to understand the impact of our digital revolution and how to use it wisely. She explains why students' attention spans have significantly decreased, ADHD, depression, impulsivity and anxiety have increased, and why students who take notes on digital devices in the classroom (tablets, smart phone or laptops) do significantly worse than those who still write notes on paper." —Erik Peper, PhD, Professor, San Francisco State University, President of the Biofeedback Federation of Europe, co-author, Fighting Cancer: A Nontoxic Approach to Treatment , author of the blog, The Peper Perspective-Ideas on illness, health and well-being (www.peperperspective.com)
"An eye-opener. This book left me speechless. i-Minds made me look inward at my own relationships with people and technology and consider whether I liked the impact instead of just blindly following it." —Rob Krall, host, Bottom up Radio; publisher, OpEdNews; and founder, organizer of the Winter Brain Meeting
"In this age of screens we're beset with a pack of new emotional and behavioral conundrums. Mari K. Swingle walks us through the fundamentals of these changes with a kindness and clarity I find deeply refreshing. i-Minds is a well-researched guide for teachers and parents keen on understanding the ramifications of our new media climate." —Michael Harris, author, The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection
"In i-Minds , Mari K. Swingle offers exceptional insights into the emotional and behavioural problems that may arise from living in a 24/7 wired world. She also provides deep insights to those trying to help anyone who's addicted to their digital devices." —Charlie Smith, Georgia Straight
" i-Minds is more than a book. It's a tool to help us decide when screenbased devices are enriching our lives, and when they're stealing it. If you've looked at your smartphone, checked your social media feed, or distracted your kid with an iPad today, you need to read this book right away." —Jon Cooksey, director, How to Boil a Frog
"A genuinely original position on a historically significant cultural issue.... A scientifically rigorous and philosophically challenging argument that digital media is not merely shaping culture, but also the very nature of the human brain." —Kirkus Reviews
"This book is a revolution. Dr. Mari Swingle pushes boundaries effectively without pointing fingers at any particular generation. She emphasizes that excessive technological use can put any age group at risk of developing behavioral issues, which is quite original compared to other authors who tend to accuse only the young of using too much i-tech.... Her findings are truly extraordinary." —San Francisco Book Review