Baroness Susan Greenfield - Brain Change from Digital Overload?

Baroness Susan Greenfield is a British scientist, broadcaster and member of the House of Lords who has been widely acknowledged as one of the leaders in the fields of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases. She is engaging, entertaining and makes complex topics such as neuroplasticity accessible to those of us who know nothing about science.


She argues convincingly, that our malleable brains may need protection from the information overload of the digital world. Baroness Susan Greenfield, suggests that the impact of screen culture on the human brain merits the same public debate and funding for research as climate change. She warns that as the online world continues to expand, excessive screen culture may be changing the way our brains are wired.


The research shows that the effect of screen culture on the brain is not dissimilar to symptoms associated with attention deficit disorder, such as a shorter attention span and decline in empathy.  The “yuck and wow” scenario of the internet “where you live in the short-term world where you have immediate reactions to things that flash up in your face and bombard your ears” might drive brain connections and brain cell circuitry in a way that shortens the attention span. In the UK alone, the number of prescriptions for ADHD has trebled in the past decade.

Professor Greenfield is researching whether these “environmental” changes will have an impact on our capacity for creative and long term thinking, and if so, what we should be doing in response. Her lectures recorded on TED, and the recent debate on the ABC entitled "The Great Brain Debate" with Peter Williams, Social Media exponent are compelling viewing: 

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2011/02/08/3131943.htm