BRAIN STRUCTURE VS CELLPHONE

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YOUR PHONE IS CHANGING YOUR BRAIN
YOUR PHONE IS CHANGING YOUR BRAIN
THE STRUCTURE OF OUR HEARTS and livers doesn’t substantially change once those organs are formed. And until surprisingly recently, scientists believed that the physical structure of our brains—and the function of individual neurons—was similarly fixed.
Then came the realization that our brains are constantly changing, and even more shockingly, that we have some control over the process.

London cab drivers
London cab drivers
 London cab drivers are one of the most famous examples of how, through thought and practice, we can change the structure and function of our brains. Aspiring London taxi drivers must memorize an astounding number of navigational details about the city, including the names and locations of roughly 25,000 streets, 320 common routes through the city, and the “points of interest” that exist within a half a mile of each of these routes. Before being allowed to drive a taxi, would-be cabbies must pass a test that’s so comprehensive that it’s simply known as “The Knowledge.” (And yes, they still have to do this, even now that we all have phones.) In 2000, a team of researchers led by Eleanor Maguire at University College London published a study in which they scanned London cab drivers’ brains to see how they compared to the brains of people who had not devoted months of their lives to memorizing the intricacies of the city. The researchers discovered that the area responsible for spatial memories (the posterior hippocampus) was larger in the cab drivers’ brains than in the non-cabbies’. The time they’d spent studying London’s streets had had a physical impact. Their thoughts had changed their brains.

The longer a person had been a cab driver—in other words, the more time they’d spent practising—the more noticeable the change. If you spend four hours a day doing anything, you’re going to get pretty good at it. If I spent four hours a day practising the piano, I’d be able to accomplish my long-standing goal of learning to sight-read music within a month. If I spent four hours a day studying Spanish, it wouldn’t be long before I’d be able to have a basic conversation.

Our brains, just like those of the London cab drivers, respond powerfully to repetition and practice. So it’s well worth investigating what skills the hours we’re spending on our phones each day might be training us to develop—and at what cost.

 Most of the hours we spend on our smartphones are not spent in concentrated thought. Instead, we’re picking up our phones for minutes or seconds at a time.
Even when we’re on them for longer stretches, we’re not engrossed in one activity. We’re scrolling and swiping between screens.
water bugs, skittering on the surface without ever diving in.
water bugs, skittering on the surface without ever diving in.

And even when we stay within one app—say, a news app or social media—we’re usually still not focusing on anything for more than a few moments. Every tweet, message, profile, and post pulls our brains in a different direction. We end up acting like water bugs, skittering on the surface without ever diving in.
oxymoron: an intensely focused state of distraction.
oxymoron: an intensely focused state of distraction.


But that’s not to say that we only casually focus our attention on our phones. On the contrary, they completely absorb us. The result is what seems like should be an oxymoron: an intensely focused state of distraction.

 As it turns out, this type of frequent, focused distraction isn’t just capable of creating long-lasting changes in our brains; it is particularly good at doing so.
Thanks for reading, As Always,
ANKURJIT KALITA


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Hello guys my name is ANKURJIT KALITA.

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