Browse content similar to Susan Greenfield, Mind Change. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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often controversial. In her latest book she looks at the way digital | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
technology including video games virtual networks and the Internet | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
may be changing the way our minds work. | :00:07. | :00:23. | |
Your premise in this book, is that our brains are changeable and | :00:24. | :00:31. | |
adaptable. They respond to changes in the environment around us. | :00:32. | :00:34. | |
Digital technology means the environment is changing dramatically | :00:35. | :00:37. | |
therefore our brains must be changing. Let's look a couple of the | :00:38. | :00:42. | |
specific examples you use. Not a new one, fast paced video games may be | :00:43. | :00:47. | |
making us more aggressive. What is happening in the brain would you | :00:48. | :00:52. | |
say? Let's unpack that little bit because I don't think people realise | :00:53. | :00:56. | |
just how sensitive their brains are to the environment. It's not just | :00:57. | :00:59. | |
the environment of the digital world, it is the environment of | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
everyday life. That is why we occupy more ecological niche is than any | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
other species on the planet. This world compared to the normal world, | :01:09. | :01:12. | |
is two`dimensional, and as he have said it is very fast paced, just | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
hearing and vision. It is supernormal and super fast and the | :01:18. | :01:23. | |
brain will adapt to that. The kind of changes on seasonal changes in | :01:24. | :01:25. | |
attention, this is reflected in changes in brain scans, both in the | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
longer term and also in the shorter term, in terms of violin stimuli, it | :01:30. | :01:35. | |
has been shown that in a particular pathway in the brain if you present | :01:36. | :01:40. | |
the subject in an experiment with violin stimuli you see a | :01:41. | :01:45. | |
desensitisation. `` violin. That is to say a reduction of the activity | :01:46. | :01:59. | |
in this crucial area. Violent for the uses social networking harbours | :02:00. | :02:02. | |
unpromoted potentially vicious biochemical cycle. `` in the bit you | :02:03. | :02:08. | |
say. What does that mean? It is strange to think of the chemical | :02:09. | :02:12. | |
being vicious, it means a vicious cycle. Not that the chemical is | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
vicious. Let's start on the cycle all human beings love the dog about | :02:18. | :02:20. | |
themselves. The reason we love to talk about ourselves is because it | :02:21. | :02:25. | |
is the antidote being lonely. `` to talk. In evolutionary terms we know | :02:26. | :02:29. | |
loneliness is back for the health, it is in our evolution to want to | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
talk about yourself. `` bad for your health. In one experiment, human | :02:34. | :02:41. | |
subjects choose monetary, instead of monetary reward they choose to talk | :02:42. | :02:45. | |
about themselves. If you're given the choice of money or the | :02:46. | :02:48. | |
opportunity to talk about yourself you talk about yourself. The problem | :02:49. | :02:51. | |
talking about yourself is you are leaving yourself and vulnerable to | :02:52. | :02:57. | |
being attacked, not physically, but attacked in a psychological social | :02:58. | :03:04. | |
way. She has done is, and that, it has evolved body language. `` what | :03:05. | :03:08. | |
evolution has done. You wouldn't tell me a secret, you wouldn't tell | :03:09. | :03:12. | |
me much about yourself if I was like this with my eyes averted and my | :03:13. | :03:15. | |
eyes folded and looking away. If I was leaning forward as you are | :03:16. | :03:18. | |
obligingly doing now I would be more inclined to confide in you. Body | :03:19. | :03:27. | |
language has evolved as a very important means for allowing you to | :03:28. | :03:27. | |
have interpersonal very protected way. And under | :03:28. | :03:37. | |
certain situations. In social networking it is like taking off the | :03:38. | :03:41. | |
handbrake. You have your foot on the accelerator but there is no | :03:42. | :03:44. | |
handbrake and there was no one there to stop you talking about yourself. | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
So off you go. That makes you very vulnerable because now it means that | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
the so`called friends you have, an audience of 500 or more people, are | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
going to feel they can now comment in a way that you wouldn't comment | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
to a close friend face`to`face. You then feel very low self`esteem, but | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
at the same time, and enhanced narcissism because that is all you | :04:10. | :04:13. | |
have. In order to talk about yourself, to detect yourself you | :04:14. | :04:18. | |
invent a parody of yourself, someone who has lots of boyfriends and | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
girlfriends, and the real view has no friends and suffers a massive | :04:24. | :04:28. | |
vicious circle. `` real you. Is this what you say when social networking | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
undermines our sense of identity? Not quite but partly. What really | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
undermines our identity is the main fact that now your identity is | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
constructed externally. What you say in the book resonates intuitively | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
with people confronted by this. You try to give it some scientific | :04:47. | :04:52. | |
underpinning or explanation. It is because of the science I said it, I | :04:53. | :04:56. | |
didn't dream up ideas and cost around in the literature, the | :04:57. | :05:00. | |
science was there. Understood, and issue you come back to a number of | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
times in the book is whether or not coronation equates to causation. | :05:05. | :05:08. | |
Because we can see something happening in people and in the | :05:09. | :05:10. | |
outside world doesn't necessarily the changes, the behaviour in the | :05:11. | :05:16. | |
brain, are caused by that. `` correlation. This is something that | :05:17. | :05:21. | |
someone who is not a brain scientist does struggle with. We are used to | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
cause and effect. We are used to if I drop that on the floor it will | :05:26. | :05:29. | |
break and so one. With the brain, there is a chicken and egg problem, | :05:30. | :05:35. | |
in that now with the power of modern neuroscience we can look at changes | :05:36. | :05:39. | |
in brain structure and activity, changes and chemicals, and we can | :05:40. | :05:43. | |
correlate, we can match that up with subjective changes in mood. And | :05:44. | :05:49. | |
behaviour. Because of that, people I think expecting much of | :05:50. | :05:52. | |
neuroscience, they expect you to prove that one thing in the brain | :05:53. | :05:55. | |
causes this. It could be the other way round. It is probably both. In | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
the larger scale of things, in the act of writing the book, you have | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
issued causation, have you not? Why write a book unless you were intent | :06:05. | :06:11. | |
on pointing out that these changes in the brain resulting from an | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
increasing exposure to technology? Yes, the point, but I also say, I | :06:17. | :06:21. | |
for some papers where they say, is it a predisposition are certain | :06:22. | :06:25. | |
people more prone to things than others, in terms of the changes they | :06:26. | :06:32. | |
show. I hope they explain, people get irritated with scientists when | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
we used the subjunctive twice removed, it could be the case that | :06:37. | :06:41. | |
maybe... It is because science is always conditional. You call the | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
book might change, you draw an analogy with climate change can | :06:46. | :06:47. | |
really say they are two issues confronting us with which we need to | :06:48. | :06:51. | |
come to terms. Climate change, the signs around it, with a small | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
minority of people, is controversial. They accuse climate | :06:57. | :07:00. | |
change scientists of scaremongering. Are you scaremongering? What is the | :07:01. | :07:03. | |
and a wake`up call? We only know and a wake`up call? We only know | :07:04. | :07:10. | |
afterwards. Scaremongering is a conclusion you should reach, not a | :07:11. | :07:12. | |
premise you should start with. In retrospect it might be that it is a | :07:13. | :07:16. | |
wake`up call, in retrospect, when we say everyone to take things into our | :07:17. | :07:20. | |
own hands. Instead of sleepwalking into this, can't we harness the | :07:21. | :07:24. | |
computers to deliver something very exciting and beneficial rather than | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
just a shaming it is automatically wonderful. Thank you for joining us. | :07:29. | :07:31. | |
`` just assuming. | :07:32. | :07:34. |