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  • Imagine for a second that everyone had a magical cube in their pockets.

  • With the right permutation, you could materialize all kinds of food or drink.

  • At first there was only one cube in existence and nobody knew what it did until after about

  • a year of fiddling with the thing, someone found the permutation for water.

  • After that, they started to quickly figure out how to make more things like tea and avocados

  • and all kinds of vegetables.

  • Over several years, they then figured out how to manufacture the cubes efficiently and

  • inexpensively and with a lot more cubes and plenty of people to play with them, things

  • rapidly progressed to the point where they were making more complex things like kimchi,

  • butter or yogurt.

  • Cube users were increasing exponentially and the world was excited about this- it was going

  • to cure world hunger, standard of living would increase across the globe, everyone would

  • have infinite access to healthy foods!

  • A couple days later beer was added to the list.

  • Then a bunch of hard liquors came out and a few people became slightly worried about

  • the whole situation.

  • Then a couple weeks later two guys from Virginia show up and sayHey uhhh we just made cocaine

  • with the cube.”

  • For the first time in most of these people's lives, they were in a situation where they

  • had access to a huge variety of choices at all moments during the day . They could do

  • anything from having the highest quality nourishing meal, to deciding to add just one or two cookies

  • to their lunch, or they could sayeh work's not going so well, maybe a spot of cocaine

  • would help.”

  • And that's kind of what we have with the internet.

  • OK It's unrealistic to say you get pathologically addicted to the internet as fast as you would

  • to cocaine, but just as the mystical cube people can choose to nourish or poison their

  • bodies at any point in the day, the internet allows us to subject our brains to information

  • that enriches our intellect and gives us new perspectives, OR we can choose streams of

  • information that leave us thinkingWhat I have been doing the past 30 minutes?”

  • The thing is, the problem goes deeper than just the minutes you lose to twitter, facebook

  • or reddit.

  • The way you use the internet literally changes your brain's default way of operating, and

  • part of it has to do with how intimately your brain interacts with tools.

  • A 2010 research article from the association of psychological science found that when you

  • are using a tool, your brain understands the tool not as something you are manipulating

  • with your hands, but actually as if it were a part of your body.

  • For example if you have someone hold a marker and then you could ask their brain to describe

  • their right hand, the brain might say something like “I have 6 rods coming out of a meat

  • filled slab.

  • 5 of the rods are bendable and 3 of them are attached to a rigid, meatless rod.”

  • Kind of like you are what you eat, from your brain's perspective you are what you use.

  • But what about more abstract tools?

  • In Nicholas Carr's bookThe Shallows,” which is all about how the internet affects

  • your brain, he explains how different tools change our perception of the world and the

  • the actual way we think, and not just what we think about.

  • One example is the very simple and useful tool that is the map.

  • Without the map people would rely on their sight as well as their understanding of intricate

  • smells and sounds to create a 3D landscape in their minds.

  • The map then simplifies this complex process down to just visualizing your position in

  • space as a point on a 2D plane.

  • Another example is how originally our perception of time was an understanding of how cycles

  • and rhythms of the natural world relate to each other.

  • With the advent of the mechanical clock, we began to look at our day as just a compilation

  • of neatly segmented slices of time.

  • Even something as simple as the spaces between words can be considered a tool that changes

  • the way we use our brains.

  • For a while, there were no spaces between words and everything was just jammed together,

  • so you had to read the text out loud to see where one word began and another ended.

  • Putting spaces between words made the task of reading much easier to the point that people

  • could read silently to themselves for much longer stretches of time.

  • Because people now had something they could engage with and stay concentrated on for hours

  • at a time, deep focus became a more widespread skill.

  • However, the recent internet environment is one that wires peoples' brains for enhanced

  • distractibility.

  • At all times you have multiple streams of information in the form of notifications,

  • advertisements, and messages from your friends -all things that you can

  • redirect your attention to.

  • Our brains are naturally on the alert for new information, and the more we're exposed

  • to this kind of virtual interface, the more our brain decides to rewire itself to respond

  • to and even crave these internet distractions.

  • Try and think about how long you usually stay on one tab, one application or one video at

  • a time.

  • Might be no longer than a couple minutes or even a few seconds.

  • You might have flipped over to facebook in just the course of this video.

  • I've even found myself opening up reddit on my phone while watching a movie on my TV

  • that I'm enjoying.

  • I'm already entertained, so what am I doing?

  • You can exercise or let atrophy different modes of thinking.

  • Maybe at some point you finally set some time aside to work on that big project you've

  • been meaning to do, only to find yourself feeling uncomfortable and asking yourself

  • Why can't I focus?”

  • The reason is the same as why most people can't sign their names with their left hand.

  • Alright, so what if we are gearing our brains to be distracted?

  • Maybe things take a little bit longer to do- that's not that terrible.

  • The problem with getting distracted like this has to do with how your short term memory

  • processing works.

  • Your brain, ironically, can be compared to a web browser.

  • For example, when you're shopping on Amazon, you might want to go back a couple pages to

  • double check the price of something.

  • You can do this by clicking the back button because the web browser stores those pages

  • in its recent history.

  • When you're doing something like reading a book, your brain is processing and storing

  • the information in short term memory so it can relate the paragraph you're reading

  • to the last couple paragraphs you just read.

  • If you get distracted by a text message while you're reading, you might find that when

  • you go back to the sentence you were just on, you're askingWait, who are they

  • talking about?”

  • This is because getting distracted and shifting your attention to the text message is like

  • clearing your recent browser history.

  • Your brain can't hit the back button to review what it just read because it dumped

  • what was in the short term memory so it could focus on the text message, so you end up having

  • to to reread the last paragraph or two.

  • Being distracted like this gets in the way of the insightful, creative thinking necessary

  • to complete fulfilling and ambitious tasks.

  • You process information in the short term memory like this when you're doing anything

  • from working on a business idea, to practicing piano or writing an article.

  • With enough time and uninterrupted focus, the information slowly trickles from your

  • conscious short term memory to your subconscious long term memory.

  • And it's only when the information is in the long term memory that you can make insightful

  • connections with other pieces of information you've picked up in the past.

  • The reason you get those Aha!

  • Moments and creative insights out of the blue is because in the background, your subconscious

  • long term memory is processing new and old bits of information and making connections

  • between them.

  • When something distracts you and pulls your focus from the task at hand, this transfer

  • of information from short term to long term memory gets interrupted.

  • "Attention is the key to the entire process of transferring information into long term

  • memory and creating connections."

  • To be truly productive and successful professionally or creatively in this competitive and fast

  • moving world, you need to set up long blocks of time where you can work completely uninterrupted

  • and you'll need to have developed a mind where distraction is not the default mode.

  • When people are picking out what to eat they kind of have it in the back of their mind

  • how that piece of food is going to change their body.

  • They can expect that while processed junk food does taste good, it will make them gain

  • weight and have less energy.

  • But I don't think enough people are thinkingIs the way I'm about to use my smart

  • phone right now going to change my brain's default setting to be more focused or more

  • distracted?”

  • Looking at a couple memes for 5 minutes when you get a quick break from work probably doesn't

  • feel like a big deal and it probably isn't.

  • Then again, your brain has the annoying ability to quickly habituate towards activities that

  • provide enjoyment for very little energy.

  • Looking back on my cube analogy, cocaine may seem like too intense of an example for the

  • bad aspects of the internet.

  • Well, research has shown that the difficulty with cocaine isn't just that it rewires

  • your pleasure center to make you addicted to it, cocaine actually damages the dendrites

  • of the neurons in the prefrontal cortex- this is the area of the brain that is responsible

  • for executive control.

  • Executive control is essentially the ability to stay rational, maintain focus and exert

  • willpower in order to achieve some sort of long term goal.

  • This means that at the same time one area of the addict's brain is wired to crave

  • cocaine, the area that he needs to rely on to resist these cravings is damaged.

  • It's this kind of rewiring of the brain in a way that interferes with your ability

  • to reach your personal potential that I'm pointing to when I make the comparison to

  • certain negative aspects of the internet.

  • While it happens slowly, these quick or instant bursts of new and interesting information

  • from the internet can become a slippery slope into a brain that enjoys and desires distraction

  • and prefer instant gratification.

  • Also, consider this: in cases of people truly addicted to the internet they also have severely

  • reduced executive function, similar to the cocaine addicts.

  • In many ways, the internet is an incredibly useful and helpful tool.

  • But a deeper understanding of which aspects of the internet affect your brain in what

  • ways is necessary to modify your usage in a way that keeps your brain functioning the

  • way you want it to.

  • We'll be looking at this more in depth soon, so stick around.

Imagine for a second that everyone had a magical cube in their pockets.

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インターネットはどのようにあなたの心を再設計するか|あなたのデフォルトモードを選択してください (How the Internet Redesigns your Mind | Choose your Default Mode)

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    kiki に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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