Read more
An award-winning neurologist on the Stone-Age roots of our screen addictions, and what to do about them. The human brain hasn’t changed much since the Stone Age, let alone in the mere thirty years of the Screen Age. That’s why, according to neurologist Richard Cytowic--who, Oliver Sacks observed, “changed the way we think of the human brain”--our brains are so poorly equipped to resist the incursions of Big Tech: They are programmed for the wildly different needs of a prehistoric world. In In the engaging storytelling style of his popular TED Talk, Cytowic draws an easily comprehensible picture of the Stone-Age brain’s workings--the function of neurotransmitters like dopamine in basic instincts for survival such as wanting and reward; the role of comparison in emotion, and emotion in competition; and, most significantly, the orienting reflex, one of the unconscious circuits that automatically focus, shift, and sustain attention. In light of this picture, the nature of our susceptibility to digital devices becomes clear, along with the possibility of how to break their spell. Full of practical actions that we can start taking right away,
About the author
Richard E. Cytowic, a pioneering researcher in synesthesia, is Professor of Neurology at George Washington University. He is the author of Synesthesia, The Man Who Tasted Shapes, The Neurological Side of Neuropsychology, and, with David M. Eagleman, the Montaigne Medal–winner Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, all published by the MIT Press.
