Mind Change: How Digital Technologies Are Leaving Their Mark on Our Brains - Hardcover

Greenfield, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812993829 ISBN 13: 9780812993820

Publisher: Random House, 2015

Synopsis

We live in a world unimaginable only decades ago: a domain of backlit screens, instant information, and vibrant experiences that can outcompete dreary reality. Our brave new technologies offer incredible opportunities for work and play. But at what price? Now renowned neuroscientist Susan Greenfield--known in the United Kingdom for challenging entrenched conventional views--brings together a range of scientific studies, news events, and cultural criticism to create an incisive snapshot of "the global now." Disputing the assumption that our technologies are harmless tools, Greenfield explores whether incessant exposure to social media sites, search engines, and videogames is capable of rewiring our brains, and whether the minds of people born before and after the advent of the Internet differ. Stressing the impact on Digital Natives--those who've never known a world without the Internet--Greenfield exposes how neuronal networking may be affected by unprecedented bombardments of audiovisual stimuli, how gaming can shape a chemical landscape in the brain similar to that in gambling addicts, how surfing the Net risks placing a premium on information rather than on deep knowledge and understanding, and how excessive use of social networking sites limits the maturation of empathy and identity. But "Mind Change" also delves into the potential benefits of our digital lifestyle. Sifting through the cocktail of not only threat but opportunity these technologies afford, Greenfield explores how gaming enhances vision and motor control, how touch tablets aid students with developmental disabilities, and how political "clicktivism" foments positive change. In a world where adults spend ten hours a day online, and where tablets are the common means by which children learn and play, "Mind Change" reveals as never before the complex physiological, social, and cultural ramifications of living in the digital age. A book that will be to the Internet what "An Inconvenient Truth "was

About this title

Review:

"In Mind Change, neuroscientist, entrepreneur and British politician Susan Greenfield argues that our technologies are not only addictive--they are an existential threat. The brain, she writes, has an 'evolutionary mandate to adapt to its environment, ' and the digital world is changing at too rapid a pace for individuals or government regulations to keep up. . . . Greenfield's application of the mismatch between human and machine to the brain introduces an important variation on this pervasive view of technology. . . . She has rare talent for explaining science in accessible prose."--The Washington Post

"How many of us work with six tabs open on a browser, a smartphone within reach and maybe another screen or two nearby? How often does 'I'll just look that up real quick' lead to several hours of indeterminate Googling? Or an impulsive peek at social media turn into a headlong tumble down some cyber rabbit hole? . . . Greenfield's focus is on bringing to light the implications of Internet-induced 'mind change'--as comparably multifaceted as the issue of climate change, she argues, and just as important."--Chicago Tribune

"Mind Change is exceedingly well organized and hits the right balance between academic and provocative. There is no question about the need for us to think more deeply about this topic."--Booklist

"[A] challenging, stimulating perspective from an informed neuroscientist on a complex, fast-moving, hugely consequential field . . . Greenfield raises questions with startling implications."--Kirkus Reviews

"[Greenfield] is not just an engaging communicator but a thoughtful, responsible scientist, and the arguments she makes are well-supported and persuasive."--Mail on Sunday

"Greenfield's admirable goal to prove an empirical basis for discussion is . . . an important one."--Financial Times

"Greenfield's Mind Change . . . proposes that global climate change can serve as a useful metaphor for how human minds--our inner environments--are, in her view, being recklessly altered by digital technologies. . . . Mind Change is an important presentation of an uncomfortable minority position."--Jaron Lanier, Nature

"Greenfield is a lucid and thorough communicator, and this book is highly accessible to those with no knowledge of neuroscience. . . . That I kept being distracted from my reading to check Facebook was less a reflection on the quality of the book than a sobering lesson in how relevant these issues are."--The Independent

"Susan Greenfield has produced a gem of a book--written with both verve and impressive clarity--warning not of the obvious dangers like a loss of privacy, but of what technology might do to our brains and social relations, to how we learn and teach, to the narcissism exemplified by 'selfies.' While the author is a scholar, she is never obscure. Nor is she a Luddite, hitting readers over the head with a certitude about our dour future. Rather, she adds a fresh voice, vividly connecting the dots to reveal that 'mind change, ' as she calls it, is as vital to grapple with as climate change."--Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World As We Know It

"This is just the book we need now as we proceed to absorb fresh digital innovations: a scientific review of their effects on the brain and what they mean for our minds. Neither a naysayer nor an enthusiast, she is a sober, reliable, and engaging voice on screen experience, telling us what happens inside our heads each time we log on, connect, play, and emote."--Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)

"Susan Greenfield is the David Suzuki of the digital moment. She is a wise and conscientious scientist intent on waking up a complacent world. While others demur that the jury is still out about the effects of screen time on our minds, Greenfield is emphatic: We are changed in very real ways by our digital lives--and not always for the better. I was thrilled and fascinated to read this brave new work."--Michael Harris, author of The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection

Book Description:

Highly topical, stimulating addition to the most important debate of our time (the effects of new technology), by one of the UK's leading neuroscientists.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0812993829
• ISBN 13: 9780812993820
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368