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Sometimes our brains just aren't cut out for the modern world, a neuroscientist says.
Even the best computer system is prone to glitches. So is the human brain. But while we can easily fix and update those digital annoyances, the human brain and its complex neural web can’t be deleted and upgraded. In his new book, "Brain Bugs: How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives", UCLA neuroscientist Dean Buonomano tells us how our brain’s shortcomings impact many of our everyday decisions.
Q: You say that our brains aren’t “programmed” to live in the 21st century. What do you mean?
A: Think of a moth flying into a candle flame. Clearly, the moth didn’t evolve to deal with light sources up close, whether that’s candles or artificial lights. Our brains were optimized to live in a world in which we dealt with finding food and shelter. Now, our brains have to deal with a world in which we plan decades into the future, have abundant food, and know a thousand different people.
Q: In your book you talk about how easily humans are swayed by marketing and propaganda. Why is that?
A: Our ability to process context can be used against us. A classic example is the “framing” effect. If you hear that you have two options for a medical treatment and one has a 95 percent survival rate and the other has a 5 percent mortality rate, people are biased toward the treatment with a positive association -- even though both are mathematically the same. Marketers take advantage of this because of our positive biases.
Q: I have a lot of bugs in my computer. But I never thought of my brain as having "bugs."
A: I obviously borrowed the term from the computer lexicon. Compared to the computer, the brain has a lot more cool things like consciousness, awareness and creativity. But as an information device, the brain does some things well, and some things very poorly due to “bugs,” which affects things like forming false memories, making irrational financial decisions and problems with remembering names and dates.
Q: Despite its glitches, the brain is clearly better than a computer at certain things, right?
A: A computer is better at figuring out a logarithm at eight digits. Its “switches” are very fast, very discrete. The building blocks of the brain, our neurons, are very noisy, because they’re very social and communicate with each other. Let’s say you turn your TV on, and you hear a person talking about "valves." If that person has a medical coat on, you’ll interpret the valve comment in the context of the heart. If the person has a mechanic’s uniform on, you’ll think car. The brain is exquisitely capable of picking up context that a computer can’t.
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Said stupid people.
Yes - it's called being unorganized.
This research is akin to looking at obese people and saying "we aren't programmmed to deal with food" - however, amazingly enough, there are still thin people in those same neighborhoods.
These same researchers still have VCR's that blink "12:00"
I know, it just seems like a ludicrous statement to make, and probably written by a person of age who isn't keeping up with technology. Kids these days are born surrounded with technology and will adapt to that way of life. It's evolution..
Tony, Evolution is a long process, it usually doesn't happen within a single generation unless there is a serious adaptation
And its been happening for years and years. The scientist in the study seems to think we've come to a halt. Not all have.
Tony, I wonder what the authors of the study thing about their own brains.
Also, looking around me I do somewhat concur with their findings. I think, however, that it is not our brains that are at fault here. It is our attitudes and approach to the world around us that is causing the problems.
And yes, I have met and known people who are largely out of place in this modern world. They would have been more comfortable to be alive 200 years ago.
Oh for sure. I think for most people its not that they CAN'T grasp new technology, it's because the don't want to. They have no interest in the subject so dismiss it as unimportant. Did the study take that into account? Probably not. They may have simply studied a handful of people who would typically throw their hands in the air when bombarded with information. I've met many like that. You have to explain things step by step, because they don't want to have to think about it on their own.
I've felt that "ADD" is a modernization attempt by our brains. It's attempting to be able to handle the excessive stimulus, sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. We can't just medicate what we see as a problem when it might be progress.
This might explain why Washington can't balance the budget - their brains are simply not capable of it. They should all be replaced by computers!
I think people who are analytical vs. those who are creative/artistic may relate on some level to how our brains evolved.
As an empirical example, I am very analytical and get focused to the detail of what I am working on; but I really suck at multi-tasking. I don't see the forest for the trees, but I do real well in my chosen profession. One of my co-workers is a real multi-tasker who can't spend more than 2 seconds on anything in detail.
That is why public schools exist. De-educating folks so they will grow up and be complacent with their lives of miserable servitude to a worthless society.
Were we put on this Earth to sit in front of computer monitors for endless hours everyday, text message through radio waves, burn gasoline in our iron horses at every whim, buy piles of junk that end up in landfills a year later??? I think not!
Yet we cling to our pre-determined lifestyle as if it's God's will. No...it is the will of the dollar. Abolish money and fix what human life is supposed to mean. As it stands our society is at the bottom of a huge pile of broken gadgets being trickled on by all the sh*t leaking from the top!
This post is just funny for the irony. Condemning modern society and gadgets through the digital medium that is the preferred means of communication in our gadget oriented modern society... Don't know if you meant to be ironic or not, but... Well done.
About 10% of the world’s population does all the major discoveries. This is nothing new; it has always been this way. The problem is that the other 90% must try to live with what the 10% has come up with. Technology has moved at such a rapid pace that most of us cannot comprehend its meaning.
Another way to look at this would be to remember that NO one person made all the discoveries but we ALL must try to live with them. You have a “FEW” people in any one field and they are the smartest people with the most education.
The best way to put it would be that MOST people are just normal and the ones doing the major research are far from normal. You can NOT judge the majority by these people.
To think a whole generation of mobile computing enthusiasts are now wondering what society would do without the Internet. Won't be long till we are all walking around in an artificial political correctness headset that will offer color coded decision making aides. Should we all stay home jacked into the vert? Or should we don the information helmet with gps and holographic indicators? Consider that a soldier in the Middle East has to be able to drive, navigate and communicate while at the same time maintain hypervigillance and situational awareness. Yet, here in U.S. the same generation can't even drive and text at the same time. What is the difference? The boogeyman.
I always knew that having a bit of a Luddite attitude wasn't such a bad thing.
Eh, he's just a quack selling books. Probably a kernel of genuine, peer-reviewed scientific truth in what he says, followed by around 300 pages of blowing it out of proportion.
This must be why after a a long day or dealing with phone calls, entering things on a computer, etc I enjoy winding down doing gardening.
You people have not understood. It is a fact that our brains are not programmed to live in a modern world.... Why ?
LOOK how stressed we get in difficult situations, 1 in 4 american has mental diseases !
Go check in africa if people are stressed and suffer from mental diseases. NOT !
This study is totally right and you all have not understood what it meant.
I heard of this somewhere else, and the stress we suffer as well as the mental diseases we suffer is proof that human kind was not programmed to live in a modern world.
We are still programmed to find food and shelter and those 2 are the most important part of our lives. Without these 2 we cannot live. This is why it is so important to maintain a healthy environment and to protect our food supplies and water. They are the essence of life and it is time that people start thinking about what is really important, our survival depend on it.
If this theory proves to be correct, then perhaps we should find ways to help restore equalibrium in the brain after having to deal w/ the activities of the 21st century. Things like computers, TV, telephones, etc. aren't going away, so we'll need to adapt----another thing I believe our brains are marvously programmed to do. Things like going into the outdoors, like walking, gardening, hunting & fishing, biking, etc. etc., things that sort of mimic activities involved in securing food as our ancestors did. And then maybe hobbies that don't involve the electronic marvels we use so much today, the computers, mobile phones, and such. Things like, oh, I don't know, hobbies involving tools, such as mechnical work, knitting & other needle work, building models, gardening & landscaping, doing home improvement projects, and so on. After all, being able to use tools has played a big part in our species survival. Even artistic pursuits involving active participation might help; I think they involve different parts of the brain other than the ones involved in electronics use.