Resiliency, Inc. News March 2014 www.resiliencyinc.comolume 1, Number 1 Issue Focus: The Loss of Focus The New Breed of High Sensation Seekers Horacio Sanchez The new breed of high sensation seekers are not chasing storms or jumping off cliffs. They are chasing high amounts of mental stimulation: surfing the web, watching videos, texting, emailing, working on their laptops or tablets, taking photos or filming, listening to music on their devices. Often times they engage in many of these activities simultaneously. The ramifications of this behavior are an increasing desire for stimulation that can result in an inability to focus and a loss of emotional stability. In This Issue Gary Small, MD, Professor of Psychiatry The New Breed of High at the David Geffen School of Medicine Sensation Seekers at UCLA and colleagues conducted a Finding Focus neuroimaging study evaluating the brain’s activity when individuals are engaged in surfing the web compared to reading a book. All the brain regions engaged when reading a book double in activation when surfing the web. The natural assumption is that activities that cause this level of initial stimulation often experience a reduction in brain activity once the practice becomes more familiar. However, just the opposite occurred with individuals surfing the web. The activity of conducting online searches not only maintained high levels of stimulation but stimulation levels heightened with increased exposure. The dilemma is that when the adapting brain quickly becomes conditioned to that level of stimulation it seeks more and more. Brains conditioned to this high level of stimulation will struggle to maintain focus when engaged in low stimulation tasks such as reading a book, listening to a lecture, or writing a paper. Small’s conclusion is that constant interaction with technology runs the risk of reducing the brain’s ability to focus on one task and even creates a form of behavioral addiction.1 Contact Us Some clever teachers reading this article might think, why not put text 919-544-0616 books on tablets and merely conform to the changing brain. Such conformity will fail because the brain’s desire for constant stimulation www.resiliencyinc.com requires exposure to novel stimuli every few minutes. As a result, a book even if placed on a tablet will encounter a drop in focus in a 1 matter of minutes. This explains why individuals who constantly surf the web average less than sixty seconds per site. In 2009, Nass and two colleagues published findings concluding that people who engage in multitasking through the use of technological devices are unable to pay attention as well as individuals who limit their interaction with multiple forms of technology.2 The study determined that the more an individual engages in multitasking using technology the lower their ability to maintain focus. Individuals will mask this type of brain adaptation by merely engaging in multiple things at one time so that their brains can continuously skip from task to task. This deludes them into thinking they are getting more done at one time. The reality is that the brain is actually incapable of multitasking. The brain cannot engage in several tasks simultaneously; it actually skips from one task to another at rapid rates of speed. However, during the switching between tasks the performance of all tasks suffers. Nass’ conclusion was that “multitaskers are lousy at multitasking.” Let’s put these findings in practical terms. The brain is placid and changes in a unique way from persistent experiences in both structure and function.3 4 The student who is unable to do homework without listening to music finds him or herself constantly checking their cell phone, while having the laptop open to multiple sites. The student tells him or herself that the music and other devices help maintain focus because when not multitasking he or she quickly tires Brain Nugget of the task. The truth is that the student can no longer focus on low A recent study examining sensory homework assignments and has surrounded the activity with multitasking ability found that high sensation components in order to get the sensory fix he or she individuals who report so desperately needs. The result is homework performed at a multitasking more frequently, standard below the student’s abilities. This drop in performance is multitask less well than those not noted by teacher, student or parent because the high standard who are less frequent requiring focus was never established. multitaskers. Indicating that the ability to multitask does A year after his initial study on not improve with practice. multimedia multitaskers, Nass and - Ophir et al., 2009 colleagues began studying the effects of chronic technology multitasking—texting, searching the web, watching YouTube videos, etc.—on the developing brain. In 2012 he published findings that preteen girls who spend large amounts of time multitasking with digital devices tend to be less successful with social and emotional development. The girls who spent a high amount of hours watching videos and using online communication stated feeling less social success, not feeling normal, not sleeping well and having more friends whom parents perceived as bad influences.5 Recent studies have shown that the ability to focus is not only crucial in carrying out cognitive tasks but also insulates the brain from 2 developing emotional problems. The reduction in the ability to focus has now been associated with an increased risk of depression, anxiety, panic disorders, and phobias. All is not lost. Resiliency Inc. has began to train schools to conduct simple focus exercises with students that can help restore the brain’s ability to maintain concentration on one task at a time. In schools that consistently perform focus drills with students, teachers report increased on task behavior and improved academic performance. Similar focus exercises have been successfully utilized in studies that demonstrate both cognitive and emotional improvement through this type of brain training. For example, Amishi Jha, Associate Professor of Psychology at University of Miami, in 2010 had marines performing in high risk jobs participate in focus exercises for 12 minutes a day for eight weeks. The marines that engaged in the focus exercises were found to not only have improved memory capacity, but also have better mood stability and performance under pressure as compared to the control group. A longitudinal study conducted over twenty years indicated that there are long-term lasting benefits to the brain’s structure and functioning Brain Nugget for individuals who consistently engage in focus exercises. The A very small percentage of connections associated with improved cognitive performance and the world’s population are insulation from emotional disorders becomes more intricately linked. supertaskers. Able to The stronger the connections between prefrontal and parietal cortex, successfully perform two and insula the better an individual’s ability to maintain emotional attention-demanding tasks stability, improve decision making, and maintain focus.6 without incurring substantial cost in performance. The Many teachers are attempting to educate the new high sensation occurrence of supertaskers is seekers through lecturing, reading and writing assignments. Many of so low that the odds of the students who desire to attend to these tasks find themselves anyone reading this article unable to because they are in need of greater levels of sensory being one is nil. The ability to supertask most likely comes stimulation. What can be done to address the loss of focus? with deficiencies to other . Teachers must begin to educate students on how their brains mental processes. are impacted by constant interaction with technology. - Watson and Strayer . Train students to improve their brain’s ability to focus by Psychomomic Bulletin & dedicating 60 seconds at the beginning of class to conducting Review 2012. 17(4). 497-485. a simple focus exercise that will help their brains regain the ability to maintain concentration. Inform students of the need to spend an hour a day unplugged. Educate students that the ability to focus is essential in maximizing one’s potential and maintaining good mental health. It is a brave new world and teachers need to be better equipped to deal with the new challenges we face in the era of technology. 1 Gary Small MD, Teena Moody PhD, et al. Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation during Internet Searching. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 17:2:116-126. February 2009 2 Ophir, E., Nass, C. I., & Wagner, A. D. (in press). Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 3 Neville, H.J. (Executive Producer), Marquez, A. (Producer/Director), Taylor, P. (Producer), and 3 Pakulak, E. (Producer). (2009). Changing brains: Effects of experience on human brain development [Motionpicture].United States:CPR. 4 Hensch, T.K. (2004). Critical period regulation. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 27, 549–579. 5 Roy Pea, Clifford Nass, Lyn Meheula, Marcus Rance, Aman Kumar, Holden Bamford, Matthew Nass, Aneesh Simha, Benjamin Stillerman, Steven Yang, Michael Zhou Journal: Developmental Psychology - DEVELOP PSYCHOL , vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 327-336, 2012 6 Luders E, Kurth F, Mayer EA, Toga AW, Narr KL, and Gaser C. (2012, Feb 29). The unique brain anatomy of meditation practitioners: alterations in cortical gyrification. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6:34. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00034 Further Reading . Mindfulness Training Modifies Subsystems of Attention. A. P. Jha, J. Krompinger and M. J. Baime in Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 7, No. 2, pages 109–119; 2007. Attention Regulation and Monitoring in Meditation. A. Lutz, H. A. Slagter, J. D. Dunne and R. J. Davidson in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 4, pages 163–169; April 1, 2008. Examining the Protective Effects of Mindfulness Training on Working Memory and Affective Experience.