Can a few days in the wild, going back to nature, reverse the impact that technology has on how we think, and our behavior?
That’s what several academics, led by psychology professor David Strayer of the University of Utah, were trying to discover when they headed out to southern Utah for a week in late May. In this wilderness, there were no cellphones, Blackberries or e-mail.
The New York Times wrote a Page One story, headlined “Outdoors and Out of Reach: Studying the Brain,” on this fascinating research Monday. The idea was to see how our brains function when we take a holiday from technology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Probing how memory, attention and learning are impacted when we’re away from digital devices could provide answers that will help treat depression and attention deficit disorder, Strayer told The Times.
There were five academics on the trip, including Todd Braver, a psychology professor and brain imaging expert at Washington University in St. Louis and Art Kramer, a University of Illinois professor who has gotten press for his studies of the neurological benefits of exercise.
“The men drink Tecate beer and talk about the brain,” The Times wrote. “They are thinking about a seminal study from the University of Michigan that showed people can better learn after walking in the woods than after walking a busy street. The study indicates that learning centers in the brain become taxed when asked to process information, even during the relatively passive experience of taking in an urban setting. By extension, some scientists believe heavy multitasking fatigues the brain, draining it of the ability to focus.”
Strayer maintains that nature refreshes the brain.
“Our senses change,” The Times quotes Strayer. “They kind of recalibrate — you notice sounds, like these crickets chirping; you hear the river, the sounds, the smells, you become more connected to the physical environment, the earth, rather than the artificial environment…That’s why they call it vacation. It’s restorative.”
Researchers have wondered how new media impact attention, “but the modern study of attention emerged in the early 1980s with the spread of machines that allowed researchers to see changes in blood flow and electrical activity in the brain. Newer machines have let them pinpoint the parts of the brain that light up when people switch from one task to another, or when they are paying attention to music or a movie,” according to The Times.
Two years ago the National Institutes of Health established a unit to study the parts of the brain involved with focus.
The men on the Utah trip do become more relaxed and less worried about missing work and e-mail while they are in seclusion.
But for me, the story is more interesting because of the questions it raises than the answers it provides.