Evolution via iPhone apps

Dan makes a brilliant point in The Power of Pace: "...we tend to underestimate the significance of the pace of change and is effects on powerful institutions."

I’d take it even further: We underestimate the effects it has on us as individuals, and thus on every aspect culture and society. Tools have always changed civilizations, but 21st century tech isn’t about tectonic shifts like the invention of the steam engine. It’s about a thousand aftershocks that change the ground we walk on. It alters not only what we do, but who we are as human beings.

Brain connections
First, we have to understand how our minds affect our brains. Neuroscientist Michael Merzenich explains the full implication of how massively what we do changes how we think:

Our individual skills and abilities are very much shaped by our environment and that environment extends into our contemporary culture, the thing our brains are challenged with.

What we pay attention to physically alters our brains, determining which synaptic connections and neural pathways get stronger and which atrophy. Merzenich uses the example of young soccer players in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Their ability to head a soccer ball occurs at a rate higher than in populations of boys from a U.S. city. This is not because U.S. kids don’t have the same motor skills or brain power. Rather, they don’t pay as much attention to developing soccer skills. Their culture doesn't value those skills in the same way.

Lots of factors go into our decision on attention allocation: biology, culture, environment, social values, parental beliefs, personal experiences, fear of spiders. Once we give our attention to something repeatedly and intensely, such as learning to head a soccer ball, we build brain infrastructure.

The beginning, when neural pathways are under construction, can be labor intensive, time-consuming and even painful.  But once we master a skill, we are effortlessly sending energy across smooth, wide highways. Same principle applies to things that aren’t as good for us. Being in a prolonged stressful situation, for example, beefs up neural connections as surely as if we were sending them to the gym.

In both cases, we  can get so good at things, we don’t really “think” about them any more. Things become automatic. We don’t need to read street signs as we drive home every day. We lose our temper at the drop of a hat when someone “pushes our buttons.”

A well-built highway system is great, if it takes us where we want to go. When old patterns have to be undone, though, it can be even more difficult than learning from scratch. Changing your mind or learning a new way to do something requires a diversion of “traffic” from super highways to roadways still being graded.

Change-positive people are cool with this. They like to build (at least some of the time.) Change-averse people will stick to the current route, even if it’s full of potholes. Most of us are in the spectrum between.

Change our brains, change the world
So how does this relate to tech? Because millions of us are paying attention to new things. We our changing the physical structure of our brains and across demographics and geography and psyochographics, we are changing in similar ways.

The skills we acquired lets us use new tech that lets us connect with others who are acquiring the same skills, the same wiring. We are transforming contemporary culture. We are changing what we pay attention to.

And we are doing it rapidly. The changes aren’t eventual. It's not horseback to automobile. Massive change doesn’t suddenly spike with a new invention and then flatten out. It is a Gatling gun of innovation. Imagine the digital press coming out two years after the printing press. Think iPhone apps. A non-qwerty phone is old school. So 15 minutes ago.

As we teach ourselves to text, we learn that we can learn. We can adapt and adopt and change. So when our phone morphs into a Blackberry and then to an iPhone and then to whatever’s next, our neural pathways for change become superhighways. We evolve -- and are willing to evolve -- faster and faster.

And here’s a corollary: Tech familiarity decreases the fear factor. Stair-stepped skills -- and most personal tech builds on the last bit -- paves our pathways. Typing to word processing to digital layout Those who started early aren’t as intimidated because some pathways are already in place. Our kids aren’t the least reluctant to dive in because they’ve been using computers since they could hoist themselves upright. Those that dive in strengthen their ability to dive in.

It becomes fun. Research indicates that we get a little boost of pleasure courtesy of dopamine as we acquire new behaviors, a built-in reward system for adaption. 

 But the change-averse are still ubiquitous, those who unfailingly pump the brakes in a desperate attempt to slow things down. Internet as isolating. It's bad for kids. It's destroying the fabric of the cosmos. It is tempting to argue back, to say that what is really being criticized is the how not the what. For instance, the isolation theory assumes that digital interaction supplants face-to-face meetings. Come to Charleston where the online community meets up more often than most of us can afford. Blaming technology for the failure of kids to go outside and play seems to me to be more about lax parenting, And the accusation that it's killing our culture sounds like the old "everything-was-better-the-way-it-used to-be" lament of people who enjoyed the perks of the status quo.

As 20th century models falter and lose relevance, a question to ponder -- one that may be more profound that how to save a failing bank or newspaper --  is what will happen as the gap widens between those who can change their minds and those who can’t?

Comments

[Dan]

Damn, girl. Fine post.

[xarkGirl]

oh and the graphics are by me. photoshop is teh awesome.

[Agricola]

Nice, thoughtful words, that really struck a chord with me. In my fumbling attempts to embrace the technology, social media, and the other cool parts of the curve, it has become apparent that a gulf develops between the embracers and the non-embracers. I'm not at all sure it is an "age" thing. I wonder if some folks are just more adventurous, and the "willingness to explore" gene thus provides an opportunity for our brains to develop the new pathways that you write about.

[xarkGirl]

I think you are absolutely right. I have always remembered a conversation dan and i had years ago about an article on why some people come out of trauma and some peope succumb to it.

Al Siebert wrote a book about it: The Survivor Personality and he found that humor, the ability to adapt mentally and emotionally flexibility and wisdom were common traits in people who move past hardship.

I also have read a theory that early America was defined by Type-A personalities, because those were the ones that got on the damn boat to come over here. Adventurous, willing-to-explore risk-takers. I would not say those qualities are inherently more valuable -- it depends on the situation and unmitigated doses are less attractive -- but I do believe some of us are just a little more out there.

The good part is just as the rambunctious can learn to settle down, the more sedate can learn to try something new.

[Michele]

Two thoughts:
1. While I am all for technology and change, digital life moves so fast that many become extremely impatient in the slower 3D world. There's no need to "pump up the brakes," but IMO stepping back frequently to get a little perspective is advisable.
2. Yes, our brains now notice different things. But for each shift in our neural nets, we lose some acuity elsewhere. Example: Some years ago read about a tribe in the Amazon whose members could tell by smell how long ago an animal had passed by, and distinguish one animal from another by the smell of their urine. The author suggested it was once a universal skill. I'm happy I can't do that in NYC -- I could never ride the subway. But I still wonder about the trade-off I'm making right now, without noticing.

[Dan]

Which is an interesting thing, isn't it? Because those Amazon tribesmen are well adapted to their environment, just as we are better adapted to ours, and it's really just a question of choices and priorities.

What's new here, I suspect, is that we're not only adapting our brains to an environment, we're adapting to an environment that is defined by its pace of change.

[xarkGirl]

. I am not familiar with research that says we lose acuity other than if you don't need it, it goes. If you needed heightened smell for survival and used it every day, then I imagine you would retain it.

Everything has a flip side. I completely agree that the digital world has drawbacks. It is essential, as you say, to step back and evaluate. Understanding that we are changing -- and how -- can help us make good choices about what we choose and what we choose to let go.

I've no problem with people who point out that not everything new is good, only with those who say nothing new is.

[Michele]

Yes, exactly, we lose what we no longer need in everyday life. Our brains are changing so fast now, do we even know what we're losing? I think of things like Sensory Integration Disorder. It's always been there, but seems much more common now. Why is that?

Just thoughts. Anyway, good piece!

[Kristin Zeaser-Sydow]

JAnet, did you write this? If not, who is the human being that did-- not the "user name" if available. Very interesting as I am quite taken with this whole concept as it applies to children and teachers and learning.

[xarkgirl]

Yep, it's me!

[Joyce Sasser]

Me too, Kristin.... survival skills for the coming generation....a really important part of that and a great post, Janet....see where it takes you, Kristin.... as a "last generation" teacher now part of the system again, this is important now more than ever... wish I could think like Janet! Worth a lot for the teachers of America to help the kids coming along in the way THEY look at life and learning..... open new doors....so much to explore, so little time! Go, Janet!