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Modern life causes brain overload
Modern life causes brain overload, study finds
The wealth of media in modern life means the average person is bombarded with enough information every day to overload a laptop computer, a study has found.
By Murray Wardrop
Published: 9:04AM GMT 13 Dec 2009
People are bombarded with the equivalent of 34 gigabytes of information a day Through email, the internet, television and other media, people are deluged with around 100,000 words a day – equivalent to 23 words per second, researchers claim.
Scientists from the University of San Diego, California, who conducted the research, believe that the information overload may be having a detrimental effect on our brains.
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MPs' expenses: A Conservative?s office essentials: mugs, mints and McVitie?s biscuitsThey claim that the strain of processing so much data means we are becoming disconnected from other people and developing shorter attention spans.
Roger Bohn, co-author of the study called How Much Information, said: “I think one thing is clear: our attention is being chopped into shorter intervals and that is probably not good for thinking deeper thoughts.”
Edward Hallowell, a New York psychiatrist and author specialising in attention deficit disorder, said: “Never before in human history have our brains had to process as much information as they do today.
"We have a generation of people who I call computer suckers because they are spending so much time in front of a computer screen or on their mobile phone or BlackBerry.
“They are so busy processing information from all directions they are losing the tendency to think and to feel.
"Much of what they are exposed to is superficial. People are sacrificing depth and feeling and becoming cut off and disconnected from other people.”
The study found that our daily word intake is equivalent to 34 gigabytes of information — enough to overload the typical laptop within a week.
It estimates that the total amount of words “consumed” in the United States has more than doubled from 4,500 trillion in 1980 to 10,845 trillion in 2008. The estimates do not include people simply talking to one another.
Total information consumption from televisions, computers and other media was estimated at 3.6 zettabytes (3.6m million gigabytes) in 2008.
Experts believe that the information overload could prompt our brains to evolve in a new way.
Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience at the universities of Oxford and Warwick, told the Sunday Times: “One of the things we have learnt over the past 20 years is that the brain does have a capacity to grow and increase in size depending on how it is used.
"Perhaps the personal experience of having to deal with all of this information will cause new nerve cells to be born and create new nerve connections in the brain.”
The wealth of media in modern life means the average person is bombarded with enough information every day to overload a laptop computer, a study has found.
By Murray Wardrop
Published: 9:04AM GMT 13 Dec 2009
People are bombarded with the equivalent of 34 gigabytes of information a day Through email, the internet, television and other media, people are deluged with around 100,000 words a day – equivalent to 23 words per second, researchers claim.
Scientists from the University of San Diego, California, who conducted the research, believe that the information overload may be having a detrimental effect on our brains.
Related Articles
24-hour news streams and constant Twitter updates causing brain overload
Good Childhood Inquiry: Watching too much television damages mental health
'Russians hacked into my computer' - new generation homework excuses revealed
Adults forget three things a day, research finds
MPs' expenses: A Conservative?s office essentials: mugs, mints and McVitie?s biscuitsThey claim that the strain of processing so much data means we are becoming disconnected from other people and developing shorter attention spans.
Roger Bohn, co-author of the study called How Much Information, said: “I think one thing is clear: our attention is being chopped into shorter intervals and that is probably not good for thinking deeper thoughts.”
Edward Hallowell, a New York psychiatrist and author specialising in attention deficit disorder, said: “Never before in human history have our brains had to process as much information as they do today.
"We have a generation of people who I call computer suckers because they are spending so much time in front of a computer screen or on their mobile phone or BlackBerry.
“They are so busy processing information from all directions they are losing the tendency to think and to feel.
"Much of what they are exposed to is superficial. People are sacrificing depth and feeling and becoming cut off and disconnected from other people.”
The study found that our daily word intake is equivalent to 34 gigabytes of information — enough to overload the typical laptop within a week.
It estimates that the total amount of words “consumed” in the United States has more than doubled from 4,500 trillion in 1980 to 10,845 trillion in 2008. The estimates do not include people simply talking to one another.
Total information consumption from televisions, computers and other media was estimated at 3.6 zettabytes (3.6m million gigabytes) in 2008.
Experts believe that the information overload could prompt our brains to evolve in a new way.
Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience at the universities of Oxford and Warwick, told the Sunday Times: “One of the things we have learnt over the past 20 years is that the brain does have a capacity to grow and increase in size depending on how it is used.
"Perhaps the personal experience of having to deal with all of this information will cause new nerve cells to be born and create new nerve connections in the brain.”
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