Susan Greenfield - Mind Change: How Digital Technologies Are Leaving Their Mark on Our Brains

Copyright 2015 by Susan Greenfield

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Extract taken from The Horses taken from Collected Poems Estate of Edwin Muir and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Greenfield, Susan.

Mind change : how digital technologies are leaving their mark on our brains / Greenfield.First edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-8129-9382-0 (hardcover)ISBN 978-0-8129-9383-7 (eBook)

1. Cognition. 2. Information technologyPsychological aspects.

3. Information technologySocial aspects. I. Title.

BF311.G7135 2015

155.9dc23

2014020059

www.atrandom.com

Jacket design: Pete Garceau

Jacket illustration: Thinkstock/Getty Images

Author photo: Keith Barnes, Oxford School of Photography

v3.1

The events leading up to the writing of Mind Change have been unfolding for the past five years, and arguably for much longer than thatperhaps unknowingly ever since I started neuroscience research and began to realize the power and vulnerability of the human brain. True, my main focus over several decades has been trying to uncover the basic neuronal mechanisms accountable for dementia, literally a loss of the mind. But even before I ever put on a white coat, it was the still broader and more general question of what might be the physical basis for the mind itself that held an utter fascination for me. Having made the rather unconventional journey to brain research from classics via philosophy, I was always interested in the big questions of whether we truly have free will, how the physical brain might generate the subjective experience of consciousness, and what makes every human being so unique.

Once I was in the lab, some aspects of these tantalizing issues could be translated into specific questions that might be tested experimentally. Accordingly, over the years, weve researched the impact of a stimulating, interactive enriched environment on brain processes, as well as the release and action of the versatile and hardworking chemical messenger dopamine, in turn linked to the subjective experiences of reward, pleasure, and addiction. At a more applied level, weve investigated how the drug Ritalin, used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), might work, and how insights from neuroscience can contribute to improved performance in the classroom. Yet there has always been an underlying theme common to all these diverse areas of inquiry, including our research on neurodegenerative disorders: novel brain mechanisms, how they might be inappropriately activated in disease, and, more generally, how these as yet underappreciated neuronal processes enable each of us to adapt to our own individual environmentto become individuals.

This wonderful plasticity of the human brain served as a natural segue into thinking about the future and how upcoming generations might adapt to the very different, highly technological landscape of the decades to come. Accordingly, in 2003 I wrote Tomorrows People, exploring the possible new kinds of environment and lifestyle that information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology in combination would deliver. In turn, this very different potential world led me to reflect more on the implications for identity. In 2007, these ideas were set out in ID: The Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century, which subsequently was to inspire a novel of a dystopian future (2121). In ID, I had suggested that three broad options had historically presented themselves for self-expression. The somebody scenario of defining oneself via consumerism offered an individual identity without true fulfillment, while the anyone alternative of a collective identity resulted in the opposite, fulfillment that was subsumed into a wider impersonal narrative. Finally, there was the nobody possibility traditionally achieved with wine, women, and song, where the sense of self is abnegated in favor of being a passive recipient of the incoming senses. When you have a sensational time, I argued, you were no longer self-conscious.

But might the supra-sensational digital technologies of the twenty-first century be shifting the balance away from an occasional and contrived situation (drinking, fast-paced sports, dancing) in favor of the mind-blowing scenario becoming more the default cognitive mode? These thoughts were in the background of my mind when, in February 2009, I had the chance to articulate them more clearly.

There was a debate in the United Kingdoms House of Lords on the regulation of websites, particularly with regard to childrens well-being and safety. If you sign up to speak at such an event, the convention is that you present an argument based on your own specific area of expertise. Since I knew nothing whatsoever about legislation and regulatory practice, I decided to offer a perspective through the prism of neuroscience. The syllogism I used was quite straightforward and not particularly original. Any neuroscientist might well have said the same thing: the human brain adapts to the environment and the environment is changing in an unprecedented way, so the brain may also be changing in an unprecedented way.

The reaction by the international print and broadcast media to this seemingly bland and logical argument was out of all proportion to its content. Needless to say, I had to endure the inevitable press misrepresentation resulting from a priority of selling copy over the actual truth: Baroness Says Computers Rot the Brain was just one of the more lurid headlines. Meanwhile, I was also told by journalists interviewing me, with the glee that people have for imparting bad news, how reviled I was in some quarters of the blogosphere, and then asked how I felt about it.

My reaction was, and has been, that Im happy to discuss the science prompting my ideas and that I will wave the white flag if trumped by hard facts. That is what scientists do: its how we publish our peer-reviewed papers and its how we develop theories. Most of us take professional criticism as the warp and weft of the research process. However, what was really interesting here was the apparent ferocity of the personalized animosity in some cases. Had I said the earth was flat, I doubt if anyone would have cared. Clearly I was touching a very raw nerve that made some people feel threatened or in some way undermined. Until then, I hadnt realized just how important an issue this was for our society. I therefore continued to read more, to think, and to speak in a wide range of forums about the brain of the futureindeed, the future of the brain.

Then, on December 5, 2011, the House of Lords presented a further opportunity for more formal open discussion. I had the chance to introduce a debate to ask Her Majestys Government what assessment they have made of the impact of digital technologies on the mind. As you can imagine, securing parliamentary time in the historic red and gold chamber is not easy, and I felt very fortunate even to have been given the brief slot that is known as a Question for Short Debate. Present at this debate were a range of representatives from diverse sectors, ranging from business to education to medicine.