YOUR BRAINspell in darkness, the sighted participants’ ability to localize sounds in
space was significantly improved. Other research has shown that ninety
minutes in the dark similarly improves tactile acuity. Even from one
hour to the next, the brain is morphing and rewiring itself so as to opti-
mize performance.
IS NEW TECHNOLOGY CHANGING OUR BRAINS?
In recent years, experts and non-experts alike have begun to wonder
whether our minds are being fundamentally altered by the prolonged
time many of us spend on the Internet, watching TV or playing video
games – a sensible question given what we know about the brain’s
malleability. Unfortunately, in providing a commentary on this issue,
the mainstream media have tended to latch onto doom-merchants
whose pronouncements are often based on conjecture rather than
evidence.
For instance, Professor Susan Greenfield, the Oxford University
neuroscientist and former director of the Royal Institution, predicted
in an article for the Daily Mail that “if we were to scan the brains of
young people who spend a lot of time playing computer games and in
chatrooms, we would find that the prefrontal cortex is damaged, under-
developed or underactive – just as it is in gamblers, schizophrenics or the
obese.” In a 2008 article for The Atlantic (since expanded into a book, The
Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains), the writer Nicholas Carr
described the changes he’s experienced: “My mind now expects to take
in information the way the net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream
of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along
the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
Everything changes our brains, so there’s no doubt that time spent
browsing the web or playing video games is doing something to our
grey matter. The evidence for whether these effects are positive or
negative is, however, far more nuanced than Greenfield, Carr and
their ilk would have us believe. Consider children’s TV: although some
shows, such as the Teletubbies, have been linked with adverse effects,
others, like Sesame Street, are seen to have benefits including improved
literacy. So in this case, it’s not the medium that’s important, it’s the
content.
It’s a similar story in relation to video games. Yes, violent games do
appear to increase aggressive thoughts and actions to a modest degree.
But action-themed games have been linked with a raft of mental bene-