Have you heard of the term “Digital Dementia”? Do you know what it is, and what I can do about it?
Digital dementia describes how the overuse of digital technology can lead to deterioration of cognitive abilities. Short-term memory, loss of concentration, inability focus are some of the symptoms of Digital Dementia. Digital Dementia can slow down learning and knowledge retention and is a growing issue among the youth.
Neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer used this term to highlight the severity of this situation among youths of countries like South Korea with high digital technology usage. According to the interview, Internet addiction in South Korea is 20% among youths. This is quite alarming and most of us may not even realize this. So are you wondering if you are experiencing this issue?
Let’s Answer a Few Questions to Gain a Better Understanding of Digital Dementia
Question 1: When was the last time you used your smartphone’s calculator to work out the bill at a restaurant?
Question 2: When was the last time you used our smartphone to find a phone number instead of typing the number?
Question 3: When was the last time you used the GPS in your car instead of using your memory to navigate to your destination?
Question 4: When was the last time you misplaced your phone and your first reaction was panic and trying to find the phone?
It is obvious we are over-reliant on our digital devices such as our smartphone, tablet, and GPS for everyday activities.
How Does Digital Dementia Impact on Society?
If you go back 25 years ago most people will be able to drive to most places nearby without even a map or will remember the phone numbers of your family and close friends on the top of our head.
Let’s take a step back and think about the following questions.
Do you think as a society we are over-reliant on digital technology?
How does this impact us as an individual and society?
What can we do about it?
Let’s explore these points further
I came up with the following activities to further demonstrate my point.
Next time you go to a restaurant look around and try to observe the following?
1. Are people are interacting with each other without a look at their phones? Yes/No
2. Are young kids on the parent’s smartphone or tablet? Yes/No
3. Look around and see how many people are looking at their phones while they are on the street walking? Few / Or A lot
From the observations in the previous exercise, the following thoughts come to mind
Due to the overuse of digital technology, our short-term memory and ability to focus deteriorates. As consequences, our anxiety increases and our addiction to devices become ever stronger. This leads to our sleep being deprive causing short term memory loss. Is this a reasonable deduction or is this far fetch???
From an individual’s and society’s perspective, the decreases in our cognitive abilities will lead to:
Digital Dementia – Generation of the Impatient
The instant availability of information is conditioning the current generation to have very little patience.
They will be less tolerance for reading, investigating and rely on information feed to the individual.
Digital Dementia – Inability to critically think
Our attention span, in general, has shrunk and our patience is dwindling. To put this in context someone in 2020 will only spend a few seconds flicking through articles and headline news and seldom read the entire article or check the references.
In general, people are less likely to read an entire article and rely on just the news headline. As you may or may not be aware, a lot of news headlines are sensationalized to attract attention and clicks. The headlines may be dramatized to catch your attention and the article may not be as dramatic. With the increase in bias and fake news, this is very disturbing. Our understanding of the world is shaped by what we perceive is the truth. If our attention span is short, we can be easily be manipulated.
”The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know” – Noam Chomsky
From a society perspective, we are interacting less physically and more online. For example, people sitting in the dinner table will often be busy using their smartphones rather than interacting.
Digital Dementia and The London Taxi Driver Study
London taxi drivers have a very stringent driving test compare to other cities. A report published in the journal Current Biology suggests, successful learning of the complex web of streets of London causes structural changes in the brain, affects memory and creates a greater volume of nerve cells in the brain’s hippocampus.
With the overload of information in the world, our ability to search through and all data and focus is becoming ever more important.
Steps we can do to fight Digital Dementia
The recent evidence that adult brains can grow new neurons was a game-changer. Neurogenesis refers to the ability to growth and development of neurons. This means as adults we can fight back against age-related cognitive decline and even dementia.
We need to be able to control the technology rather than being control
Switch to airplane mode for the first and last hour of your day. Research has shown the blue light emitted by your phone can impact your sleep in a negative way.
We need to use our digital devices we need to not just for the sake of it
1.Use your head
Try to retrieve information from your brain first before going to google. Use your head to work out maths before using a calculator. There are many brain training exercises you can use for example you can consider using your less dominant hand to brush your teeth. Experts say we can simulate the right brain through working with our “wrong hand”. We can combine using our two hands, we can stimulate two hemispheres of our brains which can jumpstart creativity.
2.Read more books
Read a book rather than using a tablet has been shown to improve memory retention. An experiment in Norway was cited as an example wherein two groups were given different reading material. One group was given paperback and the other kindle to read. The result was the group reading the paperback had better able to provide the plot in chronological order.
3.Feed your brain
Eat more blueberries, walnuts, dark chocolate, avocados and other food that have high levels of antioxidants and goodies for the brain.
4.Learn a new language
Researchers found young adults proficient in two languages performed better on attention tests than those who are proficient in only one language. This is irrespective of the learning in their infancy or in their teenage years.
5.Learn to play a new instrument
Playing instruments must use both sides of your brain. This will help strengthen your brain. The neurological effects of playing an instrument are unique in that it stimulates parts of our brain that are generally dormant. This allows the opening of new pathways and connections in our minds that grow stronger. Basically, playing musical instruments makes us smarter.
6.Get out more and exercise
Physical exercise increases blood flow and helps transport more nutrients to your brain
Final Thoughts…
Through my research, I have learned about many new things about Digital Dementia. This is something more people should be aware of and the purpose of this article is to spread awareness. More people are aware of this we can take active steps to prevent it from going worse and can try to take steps to prevent it. If we do not recognize this now can you imagine how people will become in the next few decades as we are ever reliant on digital technology? I totally embrace using new technology, but we need to use it in moderation and control our usage instead of being overreliant on it.