Previously, I had a good time that looked at what people read on the bus. Sitting whether someone is immersed, for example, in the novel? And what in this case? Dostoevsky or Marklund? Now this entertainment is no more. Everything, absolutely everything in the bus now staring at their phones.
The incredible capacity of the mobile phone to make us concentrate on ourselves gave scientists a reason to compare it with the drug.
The American brain researcher David Linden (David Linden) compares his action with the way dogs are trained.
Let’s say you want to teach your dog the “sit” command. For that you have a piece of meat. You can ask the dog to sit, and if she obeys, give her all the meat. Then in the brain of the dog in the reward center of will release large amount of dopamine. Dopamine is the substance that is responsible for the feeling of pleasure, and its release leads to the fact that the dog feels great.
The dog associates his action — that is, that she sat down on the orders, and therefore immediately sit down again if you’ll ask for it again. But if next time you don’t give her a new piece of meat, how long it will continue to obey? Not really.
Another strategy is that the piece is divided into a hundred little pieces. Every time the dog sits, she gets a small piece of meat. The result is a dog’s brain releases a small dose of dopamine. Small, but still noticeable. When this is repeated a hundred times, the dog will associate your behavior with dopamine much stronger. The result: you have a perfectly trained dog who will listen to you for a very long time in the future.
What does this have to the Internet?
The Internet works the same way, says David Linden. Every time we take out the phone and notice a new like on Facebook or a new text message, it releases a small dose of dopamine. Not very big, but sensitive. And when we repeat it a hundred times a day, we’re trained to immediately take out the phone every time you get on the bus.
Whether it is dangerous?
Honestly, nobody knows. Personally, I believe that we, the people, from the beginning of the digitalization put on a giant experiment. The experiment, which can have both positive and negative consequences. To be always online — this means constantly being subjected to stress, which for someone can be harmful. In addition, the train of thought is constantly interrupted, if all the time to glance at the cell phone and concentrate on something else again managed only a couple of minutes.
The brain researcher Nora Volkov (Nora Volkow), which Time named one of the hundred most influential people in the world, told me that often for a couple of hours puts the phone in airplane mode to achieve a calm working atmosphere.
I decided to start doing the same.
A recent book of Anders Hansen’s “the Power of the brain — like movement and exercise strengthen your brain” became a bestseller, published in many countries of the world. In addition, he was also named writer of the year, awarded recently the “health Award-2017”.
