Study finds memory decline surge in young people
onepercentrule.substack.com196 points by drcwpl 2 days ago
196 points by drcwpl 2 days ago
Study: https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000214226
Since giving up my cell phone entirely over 5 years ago, my productivity, memory, and overall happiness are at the highest levels they have ever been, in my late 30s. I no longer apologize to anyone for this lifestyle choice anymore since the benefits are something everyone deserves, but almost all opt out of today for made up reasons. I take photos with a pocket mirrorless, and take notes with a notebook. I tell time with a self winding mechanical watch. I pay for things at stores with cash instead of tap to pay. Like a cave man, I know. I am reachable by internet when I am at my desk, and by landline when I am at home. In an actual emergency dial 911, not me. Otherwise it can probably wait until I am at my desktop or a laptop. I was already sold on raising kids without smartphones on intuition and lived experience, but study after study point at us having access to all humans, all knowledge, and all entertainment at all times as leading to generally bad mental health and cognitive function outcomes. Our brains were simply not evolved for it. Whenever I see parents scrolling, and handing a kid a phone as well to pacify them, I wish I could report them for child abuse. I feel like I am watching them be given whiskey or cigarettes, except it is socially acceptable and no one cares. Last Monday in a fit of exasperation I turned my phone into airplane mode. And that's where I left it, for an entire week. I swear this was the most productive week of work I've ever had in my professional career. It's astonishing. On the weekend I wanted to call my mom and yet I dreaded taking it off airplane mode. I'm going to try doing this for the foreseeable future. You can do wifi calling in airplane mode. Left ours in this mode by default for months at first and then realized we could just cancel the cell phone plan entirely to save money. Wifi is everywhere when you need it. What about using your phone for navigation? I personally just look up directions online before I leave and take a few notes. Usually commits it to memory. Regularly relying on a GPS in general provably makes your brain weaker: It’s easy to save map regions that work offline. GPS is passive and doesn’t need an internet connection to function. > Whenever I see parents scrolling, and handing a kid a phone as well to pacify them, I wish I could report them for child abuse. Consider that you might not have everything figured out for everyone. I'm glad you found something that works, but the will to impose your way on others isn't benevolent. Many parents used to drink while pregnant and put whiskey in the baby bottle to make kid shut up. We should make decisions based on research, not by emulating other badly informed parents, even if they are the majority. The study does not point to a cause. The comment I'm responding to is drawing conclusions based on a sensationalist blog post and then wishing they could report other parents for abuse. I think the study is well done, but we can't scientifically draw the conclusions from it that the author (and folks in this thread) are drawing. This is just one study, that echos dozens and dozens of other studies all pointing at the same things: being reachable and able to reach everything and everyone everywhere all at once is making us all sadder and less productive, and kids are getting the worst of it having been handed this tech from their parents shortly after birth. Your reply was next to meaningless as it doesn't offer anything above a "well, that's just how YOU feel about it!". Yes, that's true. That /is/ how the OP feels about it. But at least they were able to articulate their point and get a message across, along with an implied (albeit weak) "call to action", not meant to be taken literally. Although I'm sure, if polled, the majority of folks in this thread would agree with the OP sentiment. I know I do. “I wish I could have CPS take away their children and put them in foster homes” is a pretty messed up thought to have in response to seeing a kid looking at a phone. It seems pretty reasonable to call that out. > Your reply was next to meaningless We’re on a discussion forum. “Here’s how I feel about what said” is basically the point. The purpose of my comment was to point out that just because you've found a solution that works for you does not mean it is generalizable and should be turned into a rule for the entire population. To be clear on my views. 1. I am entirely convinced minors should not have smartphones and every study supports this being a net negative. 2. I feel most adults are better off without them too, but it is an adult choice. For most I suggest deleting a frequently used app ever month until you stop seeing benefits. The study we're discussing drew no such conclusion. There's a very disturbing pattern of studies coming out and being summarized by people with an agenda that choose to draw conclusions that are not supported by the study they're discussing. This is definitely true of social media studies, and I suspect it's true of mobile phone studies as well, although maybe you can provide a couple that you think are airtight and I can take a look. ALL studies I have seen seem to support the idea that constant connectivity leads to worse mental health outcomes on average. To get to specific proof though, clinically in the way we could with other addictions like smoking, we would need to look at how individual applications that allow us to outsource various cognitive functions specifically impact our brains. GPS is a well studied example. Humans that rely on GPS instead of their own brains end up with provably weaker hippocampus. https://newatlas.com/gps-spatial-direction-ucl/48529/ It is not hard to form a hypothesis from this how letting targeted content algorithms decide what you see instead of making decisions on your own could weaken the portions of your brain that make decisions in a similar way, and all studies we have seen so far seem to support this hypothesis. I would of course like to see more brain scan research but when all data points to the negative on something only available to humans very recently, and your own lived experience of forgoing that something has had major benefits for your personally, it becomes easy to be a strong advocate for people trying out a reduction of that something. You seem to be arguing about avoiding constant connectivity. This is very different than not owning a smartphone. I think the conversation has gone off the rails, as I was critiquing your desire to impose a no smartphone lifestyle on others. I can't reply to you anymore, but the study you cited is at least a couple of steps removed from the discussion.
First, it's about offloading navigation to a computer, and observing that humans use less of their navigation skills when doing so. This is very far removed from "smartphone use causes mental health problems". Second, you claim it shows a "provably weaker hippocampus". But the study doesn't show that at all. It shows less activity in the hippocampus, which would be entirely expected, much like if we offloaded translation to a computer, we wouldn't see the same level of activity in the language centers of the brain. The researchers themselves only conclude this from their study: > These results help shape models of how hippocampal and prefrontal regions support navigation, planning and future simulation. That's it.
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