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A Comment for Consideration

Friday 30 July 2010

Australian Medical Research Week was held in early June this year. This year’s Medal was awarded to Susan Greenfield, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford and also Director of their Centre for the Science of the Mind.

As well as being a leading research scientist, Susan Greenfield is an excellent communicator and innovator. She was voted Honorary Australian of the Year in 2006.

Her work is beginning to have a practical influence on classroom education. As the following extract indicates, she has a great desire for all of us to understand some of the implications and challenges of her work and to enter into the debate – as parents, teachers and indeed children and young adults: in fact all of us!

The wonderful thing about being born a human being, as opposed to, say, a goldfish, is that although we start off with pretty much all the neurons we will ever have, it is the growth of connections between the brain cells that accounts for the growth of the brain after birth.

This post-natal development of the human brain means that, unlike the goldfish, we have the potential for experiences to leave their mark on those brain cell connections.

Every moment, we interact with specific objects – people, indeed the personal world around us – so that unique, one-off interaction will strengthen, weaken and shape the overall pattern of connections.

Human beings don’t run particularly fast, we don’t see particularly well, and we are not particularly strong compared to others in the animal kingdom, but more than any other we are fantastic at adapting. Hence, we occupy more ecological niches than any other species on the planet. If you have individual experiences, then you become an individual.

But if the environment of the 21^st century is changing in unprecedented ways, then the mind, too, may be changing in ways we could not have assumed.

Between their 10^th and 11^th birthdays, a child in the UK spends an average 900 hours in class, 1277 hours with their family, and 1934 hours in front of a screen (TV or computer).

The BBC has also reported that Britons spend nearly “one day a month online”, with British web users spending 65 per cent more time online than three years ago.

Congruently, there is a need to treat technology addicts. One London hospital is home to the Young Person Technology Addition Centre, which offers bespoke treatment for young people or “Screenagers” who spend large amounts of time each day playing computer games or using social network websites.

How might the 21^st century mind be changing? First, there’s the shorter attention span. Imagine a young brain exposed from the outset to a cyber world of fast action-reaction, or instant new screen images flashing up with each press of a key, and the sensory-laden thrill of the moment.

Second on the list could be recklessness. Computer games are always repeatable. Hence in real life, the habitual player could become used to taking excessive risk without caring about the outcome.

Third on the list is sensory experience.

Could a daily life lived in the two dimensions of the compelling, sensory experiences of the screen, be similarly predisposing the brain to a disregard for consequences?

In support of the suggestion of a screen-induced decline in empathy, it seems that those within the spectrum of autism (an impairment in empathy) are most comfortable in the cyber world.

A fourth change might occur with use of metaphor and abstract concepts. Just as it would be hard to translate feelings into literal screen images, so it would be difficult to expect current software to help the user gain a sense of abstract concepts or of metaphor.

The fifth factor includes the use of symbols and a concept of causality may, in turn, impact on our sense of self.

When a human baby is born, he or she is not self-conscious, and does not see him/herself as a unique and distinct being. Rather, the child develops a sense of identity as he or she embarks on a unique narrative. However, if we live perpetually in the moment, in a world where events are not linked consequentially, then might our sense of self be in jeopardy?

Given the plasticity of the brain, could prolonged experience of screen-based activities be driving the configuration of brain circuitry persistently into a hypo-frontal state (in other words, an under-active prefrontal cortex) resembling that of the child – a permanent Peter Pan?

On the other hand, science is giving us en masse longer and healthier lives, with far more time to fulfil ourselves as the unique individuals that we are.

It would be a tragedy to miss the opportunity that we now have to discuss how to actually harness this technology to deliver, for the first time, our true individual human potential.

The whole lecture was really fascinating. There is much to debate, think about and consider while the research and understanding continues to be pursued.