When Nora Volkow says, “The technology is rewiring our brains,” she is spot on in my opinion. I think she means that technology has had such a significant effect on daily life and how society acts and reacts. It has rewired our brains in the sense that hard tasks become easy tasks and in depth thinking and problem solving becomes the simplest of processes with the support of technology. Ritchel’s best example of this rewiring is in Kord Campbell. He says that people consumed more than three times as much information in one day in 2008 than in 1960 and Mr. Campbell is the perfect example of this. He sleeps with a laptop on his chest and wakes up browsing the web. It has affected his only son and his wife’s outlook on him since they’ve been together. Also Ritchel’s evidence about the Stanford research shows this rewiring of the brain. People that think they can multitask using technology in fact absorb useless information more than non-multitaskers. Multitasking is an information overload and technology is its key stimulus.
Mr. Campbell’s case is quite depressing. At work he has three computer monitors, an ipad, a laptop, and twitter up and running at all times. His love of technology creates mistakes like overlooking important emails and forgetting to pick up his kids because he was lingering on his iphone in the bathroom. The Campbell’s even felt like their son was unnaturally consumed by technology so they have scheduled study time. Ritchell connects to his audience the best in my opinion when he describes their family vacation. The first night on vacation they didn’t even go out to dinner because they were too consumed in their devices. The next day Mrs. Campbell finds Mr. Campbell playing video games and checking his email. This relates to a lot of families throughout society in my opinion. Being with family is only made possible in today’s society by taking a vacation and disarming all technology from the trip.
The “myth on multitasking” completely made sense to me when I read it. Whenever one attempts to multitask, concentration is thrown out the window and useless information becomes more and more absorbed. I wouldn’t say my outlook on multitasking changed because of Ritchel but it was absolutely reinforced. On the other hand, multitasking is just a part of daily life and as much as I feel changing that is a necessary point, breaking that habit is a colossal task. Ritchell used the Campbell’s as a way to connect with audiences all throughout society and I believe everyone that reads this can connect to their story on some level. Whether that be bad or good.
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