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Did you step away for 5 minutes? If not, do it now!
I watched another webinar by Jim Kwik of Kwik Learning, unfortunately the replay will expire before this blog is posted but I'll share some of the information with you.
The webinar was on focus and how these three villains are stealing your focus:
- Digital distraction
- Digital overload
- Digital dementia
Digital distraction is when you keep checking your phone for email, texts, or Facebook notifications. The reason we do this is because we get a little shot of dopamine when we do.
According to an article in Psychology Today:
Pleasure vs. seeking — You may have heard that dopamine controls the "pleasure" systems of the brain: that dopamine makes you feel enjoyment, pleasure, and therefore motivates you to seek out certain behaviors, such as food, sex, and drugs. Recent research is changing this view. Instead of dopamine causing you to experience pleasure, the latest research shows that dopamine causes seeking behavior. Dopamine causes you to want, desire, seek out, and search. It increases your general level of arousal and your goal-directed behavior. From an evolutionary stand-point this is critical. The dopamine seeking system keeps you motivated to move through your world, learn, and survive. It's not just about physical needs such as food, or sex, but also about abstract concepts. Dopamine makes you curious about ideas and fuels your searching for information. Research shows that it is the opioid system (separate from dopamine) that makes us feel pleasure.
Wanting vs. liking — According to researcher Kent Berridge, these two systems, the "wanting" (dopamine) and the "liking" (opioid) are complementary. The wanting system propels you to action and the liking system makes you feel satisfied and therefore pause your seeking. If your seeking isn't turned off at least for a little while, then you start to run in an endless loop. The dopamine system is stronger than the opioid system. You tend to seek more than you are satisfied. Evolution again — seeking is more likely to keep you alive than sitting around in a satisfied stupor.
Dopamine loops — With the internet, twitter, and texting you now have almost instant gratification of your desire to seek. Want to talk to someone right away? Send a text and they respond in a few seconds. Want to look up some information? Just type your request into google. Want to see what your colleagues are up to? Go to Linked In. It's easy to get in a dopamine induced loop. Dopamine starts you seeking, then you get rewarded for the seeking which makes you seek more. It becomes harder and harder to stop looking at email, stop texting, or stop checking your cell phone to see if you have a message or a new text.
As far as number 2, we have instant access to nearly unlimited information. According to an article on Tech Crunch:
Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003, according to Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says.
Let me repeat that: we create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003.The Schmidt mentioned in the article is Eric Schmidt, the Chairman of the Board for Google, which makes it easy to access all of this information.
And the third item is the fact that we use our smartphones for everything! We don't even have to think anymore. Remember when we had to memorize our friends' and family's phone numbers? How many phone numbers do you know now?
From Dr. Jenny Brockis:
When was the last time you trusted your own sense of navigation to get you to your destination? Or when was the last time you relied on your own brain to work out the answer to a simple maths question, such as dividing a café bill between friends?
Our smart phones are quick and easy to use. Why trouble your brain when your phone provides you the answer to everything you need?
One reason to not rely so heavily on our phone is the latest research from Canada that suggests that because our brain likes to take the easy option when given the choice, we are reducing our ability to problem solve.
There's a difference too between different types of thinkers. Intuitive thinkers tend to be lazier than analytical thinkers when it comes to selecting to using brain power.
The implication is that our smartphone use is already having a significant effect on our ability to think. The researchers suggest there is an association between heavy smartphone use and lowered intelligence. Another concern is that as we age, it is essential for good brain health that we continue to challenge our brain and make it work for us. An idle brain is a rapidly rusting brain.So how do we solve these problems? Put down your smartphone! Jim Kwik says to not look at your phone for the first hour after you wake up. And Dr. Breus says to sleep better, put your phone down an hour before bed. And use your brain! Do crossword puzzles. Or math problems. Memorize some phone numbers. Learn a foreign language or two. But do these things without using your smartphone!
I'm going to start putting my phone down and leaving it down. In fact, Dr. Breus recommends keeping your phone in another room, or at least far enough from your bed to make it a hassle to look at it. That means to use an alarm clock. Remember those? And red digits are better because they don't affect your night vision like blue or green. And less reading Kindle books and more reading real books!
Also, don't forget to put your phone in "do not disturb" mode...especially when you're asleep, but the more notifications that you can turn off the better, especially for digital distraction. And get rid of all of your close friends on Facebook! Do you really need to know every time someone posts, likes or even comments on someones else's post?
Interesting days
Today - Beautician's Day, Chocolate Pudding Day, Please Take My Children To Work Day and Canoe Day
Tomorrow - Pineapple Day, Sunglasses Day and Industrial Workers Of The World Day
Next Monday - Stay Out Of The Sun Day, Compliment Your Mirror Day, International Plastic Bag Free Day and Disobedience Day
July 26 - One Voice Day, Aunt and Uncle Day, All or Nothing Day and Coffee Milk Shake Day
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