Texting rots your brain

[barrons]

<p>Ok, maybe a little excessive but—maybe not</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/health/26teen.html?_r=1&8dpc[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/health/26teen.html?_r=1&8dpc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[rodney]

<p>just forwarded this to my 16 yr old; my other one (19) is a hopeless case…at least her grades are not affected…</p>

[Bay]

<p>That article described my D perfectly. I was very worried about her excessive texting over the past 4 years; she was constantly distracted and sleep deprived. I did take the phone away several times when I caught her up late with it. In the end, she kept her grades up and is going to Yale next fall, so I’m not worried about it anymore. I actually wonder whether it might be good for the brain to be able to focus on two things at once, and enhance one’s ability to “multi-task.” There must be benefits to that. I hope.</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>Bay, that’s what I thought, too, until I started reading about multitasking. </p>

<p>

Don’t believe the multitasking hype, scientists say. New research shows that we humans aren’t as good as we think we are at doing several things at once. But it also highlights a human skill that gave us an evolutionary edge.</p>

<p>As technology allows people to do more tasks at the same time, the myth that we can multitask has never been stronger. But researchers say it’s still a myth — and they have the data to prove it.</p>

<p>Humans, they say, don’t do lots of things simultaneously. Instead, we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly. </p>

<p>A case example, researchers say, is a group of people who focus not on a BlackBerry but on a blueberry — as in pancakes.
…

</p>

<p>Here is the link to the article:
[Think</a> You’re Multitasking? Think Again : NPR](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794]Think”>Think You're Multitasking? Think Again : NPR)</p>

[jessiehl]

<p>Like every other tool, and every other medium, it all depends on how you use it.</p>

<p>Staying up far into the night, to the point of serious sleep deprivation, doing <em>anything</em>, will be harmful, for instance. When I was in high school (1999-2003), people didn’t text during class so much, but they played video games on their graphing calculators, for probably just as much distraction. Anything involving repetitive motion can potentially cause RSI.</p>

<p>Myself, I don’t like texting. I’ve probably sent fewer than 10 text messages in my life, and all of them were in response to texts from other people.</p>

[garland]

<p>And then there’s texting or other cell phone use while at the dinner table–it’s incredible to me how some folks will let it take over their lives. </p>

<p>

That means you, George d’Arbeloff. Or so his wife, P. A. d’Arbeloff, told him after she caught him peeking at the iPhone in his lap during Thanksgiving dinner at their home in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. “I tried to catch his eye,” said Ms. d’Arbeloff, director of the Cambridge Science Festival in Cambridge, Mass., “but he was looking down.” </p>

<p>He may have been scrolling through work-related e-mail messages or, possibly, checking sports scores, conceded Mr. d’Arbeloff, who is the chairman of a Los Angeles-based dental laser company. Because the company is on the West Coast, e-mail messages tend to flood in just as he is sitting down to eat.</p>

<p>“I have never texted at the dinner table,” he said in a telephone interview. “I will admit: I do read e-mails.” He paused, listening to his wife, who was in the room with him. “P. A. says I send.” </p>

<p>A few months ago, a family meeting was convened. The d’Arbeloffs’ 7-year-old twin daughters made their feelings known. Their father agreed to cease using his iPhone during dinner. “I’m 95 percent reformed,” he said.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/dining/27text.html?_r=1[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/dining/27text.html?_r=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Sad that his seven-year-old twins had to ask him to stop.</p>