Digital devices are a lot like fire and knives – very useful and potentially very dangerous. Unlike fire and knives, these dangers aren’t instantly felt. We don’t get a burn or a cut when we mishandle them. Instead, we get a little notification urging us to come back for more.
Want to get the best from tech without it doing damage to your mind? By understanding how big companies exploit the neuroscience, we can better know the dangers and put in place strategies to keep tech in check.
Monetising Outrage
Right now, there are a bunch of media and tech companies competing for one thing – our attention. By playing on our fears, insecurities and prejudices, they are proving spectacularly successful at getting it.
This hard-fought battle for our attention has been tagged ‘the race to the bottom of the brain stem.’ Because getting us outraged is one of the most effective ways to get us engaged, algorithms favour provocative content over that which is nuanced and balanced. By amplifying extreme voices, social media is serving to radicalise, divide and instil some very dangerous beliefs. It can also deeply affect our mental wellbeing by consistently making us feel anger, fear and dismay.
Useful strategies:
1. When it comes to your digital diet, you are what you eat. Consider whether the content you are consuming aligns with your true values, whether it is helpful and how engaging with it makes you feel.
2. Where possible, block harmful content and fill your feed with things that you know may be more useful, positive and uplifting.
3. Maintain a healthy scepticism about the information you are served up. Rather than rely on the next auto-played video, seek out credible sources of information to gain different perspectives and a more nuanced understanding.
4. Set limits on how much you consume. Rather spend hours going down a rabbit hole, decide how much time you want to spend first.
Hijacking our attention
Every day, across all our devices, a procession of pop-ups, alerts and chimes battle to win our attention. Often they succeed in ripping us away from the present moment. To keep up with it all, we attempt to multi-task.
While we may think we are fabulous multi-taskers, when humans try to do multiple things at once we do them badly. When we walk down a crowded street while talking on our phone, we become much worse at avoiding other people. That’s because our brain is being forced to rapidly switch attention between the task of having a conversation and the task of not crashing into other people. As well as making us perform poorly, all this attention switching is very taxing on the brain. The more we attempt to multi-task, the more cognitive fatigue we are likely to feel.
Useful strategies:
1. Turn off distracting notifications, pop-ups or sounds, so that you can stay focused on the task at hand.
2. Set aside periods of the day for answering emails or social media, rather than constantly returning to them throughout the day.
3. Practise mindfulness. For anyone with a busy brain, regularly practising mindfulness can ease stress and help focus attention to just one thing at a time.
4. Take regular time out from tech, particularly when you are eating, enjoying time with others or walking down a busy street!
Getting us addicted
Smartphones may be the perfect addiction machines, masterfully hijacking our neurocircuitry to make these attention-devouring devices something we dare not do without. In a 2023 survey of 1,000 Americans, 57% said they were addicted to their phones. On average they checked their phones 144 times a day, with 75% saying they checked it within ten minutes of getting up and 45% saying they felt anxiety or panic if their phone’s battery went below 20% charge. Each time we pick up our phone we are rewarded with targeted content and a pleasant dopamine hit. With an endless stream of new content available, it’s super-simple for us to keep coming back for more. Device addiction is a growing problem and can easily affect our sleep, our relationships and our ability to engage fully with the offline world.
Useful strategies:
1. There are now a range of digital supports that will help us measure how much we are using our phones and employ strategies to cut down on use. These can include setting phone use limits, restricting functions during certain times of the day or even turning your display black and white, so it isn’t quite as rewarding to look at.
2. If you are finding certain apps particularly addictive, it may be wise to set time limits or delete them. To completely avoid temptation, some people will even opt to swap their smartphone for something far more basic.
3. Switch screen time for your favourite flow activities. From mountain biking to making music, there are a wide range of flow activities that can absorb and sustain our attention, whilst delivering us even bigger rewards than we may get from a device.
4. Seek help from a professional. If your use of digital devices is proving problematic in your daily life, impacting your relationships or affecting your mental health, it may be time to speak with a doctor or psychologist.
Preying on our need to belong
Humans have evolved as social beings. To feel safe, we need to feel accepted. Social media platforms play heavily on this need, with likes, friends and followers forming a new type of social currency. Eager to earn more of this currency, we do more of what we believe will please the algorithm and please the crowds.
Relying on this external validation is dangerous. While getting loads of likes may give us a boost, a single nasty comment may cause us distress. Whenever social media is used to exclude, harass or bully us, our brain’s threat response network can be activated, releasing neurochemicals like cortisol and adrenaline. While these chemicals can be useful when it comes to fight or flight, they may only serve to heighten stress and agitation when it comes to a less tangible threat.
1. Practise self-compassion. When we feel we are enough, just as we are, we have a much-reduced need for external validation. Self-compassion can also serve to soothe us when we’ve had a difficult time online.
2. Post for yourself. While it is easy to get caught up trying to win likes or please an algorithm, when you post only what you truly care about, the judgements of others can become far less relevant.
3. Hang out offline and be your authentic self. Where possible, spending time in person with your true friends can be far more rewarding than attempting to please the crowds online.
Setting up unfair comparisons
One of the big dangers of social media is that it causes us to measure ourselves against completely unrealistic ideals. Whether it is the carefully curated profiles of friends or the lives of famous influencers, it’s easy to feel like we are failing in comparison.
Social media can present a warped version of the world, making the extreme seem normal. Whether it is the length of an eyelash, the size of a bicep or the price of a handbag, we can easily begin to feel that what we have is not enough. To feed our need for acceptance, we can end up pursuing things that may not be particularly useful or in true alignment with our values.
Useful strategies:
1. Cut back on use. Lower rates of social media use are associated with lower rates of depression.
2. Take a reality check. Much of what we see online doesn’t match up to the real world. It’s helpful to treat most content with a healthy dose of scepticism.
3. Consult your values. When we consult our values, we begin to live our lives on purpose, pursuing the things we truly care about, rather than trying to keep up with impossible ideals.
Rewiring our brains
Neuroplasticity allows us to develop our brains to suit our needs. When we work on developing a skill, neural connections form. When we continue to practise, these connections will continue to grow, allowing us to perform this task better.
Technology has already drastically changed how we use our brains. Due to our devices, skills like map reading, handwriting and mental arithmetic are all now practised far less than they were in decades past. With the internet in our pocket, we have also been free to outsource much of our memory to Google.
The rise of AI means many other hard-earned skills are being rapidly handed over to technology. Why bother learning a language when you can auto-translate? Why spend many hours creating art, writing a letter or making a song when a machine can do it in seconds?
How this rapid handover will affect our brains long-term is yet to be seen. While some skills may be lost, others will become far more important.
Useful strategies:
1. Use it or lose it. To keep current connections strong, keep practising things the old-fashioned way. Try navigating without your phone, adding up without a calculator or playing that musical instrument.
2. Don’t avoid it. Just as we learnt to use computers, we will all need to learn how to use AI. By playing around with it, we will develop new skills and build new neural connections that will be helpful as our world changes.
3. Be thankful for your brilliant human brain! By being thoughtful about where you place your attention and what skills you develop, you can wire your brain any way you like. Using your human creativity and insight, you may also be able to put AI to good work.