I was in a meeting at work last week when a consultant psychiatrist explained something about how the brain works which I thought I'd share with you. I'm paraphrasing somewhat, but here we go...
Brain tissue is like muscle tissue - you need to use it to keep it working. If you want to build muscles, you work out with weights. But you need to steadily increase the weights you use or your muscle won't grow. It's the same with brain tissue. If you want to increase your attention span, knowledge, brain power, you need to set your brain increasingly harder tasks.
Although he didn't state it implicitly, I inferred that the reverse was also true. If you stop doing physical exercise, the muscle tissue you've built will eventually turn back to fat. Similarly, if you stop using your brain to think, work things out and solve problems, eventually your brain will lose the ability to do so. Bluntly put, you'll get stupider.
Thomas Dolby - My Brain Is Like A Sieve
Welcome to TikTok.
Last week, we spoke about the negative effects too much social media can have on our mental health. We discussed how prolonged exposure to social media - in search of more and more feel good dopamine hits - can effectively rewire our brains. Facebook, Twitter (I refuse to call it X), Instagram, Snapchat... they're all guilty of this... but by far the worst offender in my eyes is the evil known as TikTok.
Or as one writer in Forbes dubbed it a couple of years back...
Digital Crack Cocaine
Dillinger - Cocaine In My Brain
It's an article I'd recommend everyone reads - I even use it with students, ostensibly as a writing to argue exercise, but also to plant the seed in their heads that TikTok is something they should be wary of. That Forbes writer, John Koetsier, explains how he downloaded the app purely to research the article he was writing, and despite that he found himself immediately addicted.
Suede - Turn Off Your Brain And Yell
If you've never used TikTok - firstly, well done you. (I refuse to go anywhere near it, myself.) But you may be wondering just how it can be so addictive. The answer, according to Professor Julie Albright (as quoted in Koetsier's article) is that the platform works on the same principle as a slot machine. Sometimes you win (get a little dopamine hit from having viewed a photo or video or meme that you find amusing or emotionally engaging) and sometimes you lose (that next video leaves you cold). But you keep on feeding the machine in the hope of another win... and before you know it, it's three o'clock in the morning and you've just watched your 121st post of the night.
And this is when the rewiring of your brain begins...
“Our brains are changing based on this interaction with digital technologies and one of these is time compression,” Albright says. “Our attention spans are lowering.”
The Weather Prophets - Worm In My Brain
That’s not just happening for kids: it’s happening for all of us. If you don’t believe that, try to watch a movie from the 50s, 60s or even 70s. In most cases, within minutes you’ll be wondering: when will something happen?
Which takes us back to that quote from my colleague the brain doctor at the start of this post. How to exercise our brains to stop them turning into pudding, as I fear mine might have been a few years back.
In the comments to this series a couple of weeks back, Alyson rightly questioned the amount of time I must spend on this blog, saying...
I do wonder if you substituted a couple of days of blogging for a couple of sessions of reading (I know you don't have time for this really enjoyable pastime any more) you would replace the dopamine hit with contentment and achievement.
I'm very much aware that my reading suffered over the last ten years. I used to read a book a week, but when I became a teacher (and soon after a father), I found it harder and harder to find the time, energy and brain space to focus on reading. And I did fall into the trap of scanning facebook instead of settling down with a book, because that seemed like something I could spend just a few minutes on rather than committing to a long read... then after a while, I found it harder and harder to pick up a book. That's something I've fought to rectify since leaving The Bad Place and starting the new job. And this year, I really feel like I've been able to retrain my brain to be able to focus on reading again. But it wasn't easy.
Robyn Hitchcock - The Abandoned Brain
Similarly, this blog. One of the reasons the post-length has grown and my subject matter has become more diverse and complex is that I'm pushing myself to write better. Because sustained writing is like sustained reading: it takes effort. Both are great brain exercise. Every time I write a post that verges on a thousand words, I'm pressing some serious weights. And every time you read one of these posts all the way through - which, let's face it, is no small investment - you're pressing some serious weights too. You might not realise it, but your brain will thank you for it.
The New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too
There you go - public service blogging at its best... and so much better for you than TikTok!
