The Plastic Brain vs. Technology

I had an interesting realization while listening to a book lately (yes, I'm a college student that has time to listen to audio books--but only because I make time), which is that micro-blogging has actually changed the way my brain functions. Let me back up and explain about the book that brought on this realization. The Brain That Changes Itself is a book about neuroplasticity--in plain language, it says that while your brain has areas broadly devoted to certain tasks, if the area devoted to a particular task is damaged, then your brain can reroute the task so that it is processed somewhere else. A key idea for this can be summarized in the catchphrase, "Neurons that fire together, wire together." (I hope you will forgive me this very brief description--it's a difficult subject to wrap your mind around, and I can't actually refer to the book, since I was listening to it.)

The appendix of the book explores the implications of the success stories--which are truly spectacular; stroke victims can relearn how to live normally, even after massive brain damage--for our lives and our culture, and one section in particular struck me. (I may have given it away in my title; not very ninja-like of me.) In the section of the appendix dealing with technology, Norman Doidge, MD, took the key concept that I mentioned above one step further. If neurons that fire together, wire together, then someone who composes with their fingers on the keyboard, so to speak, might be wiring the neurons involved in putting words together coherently with the neurons involved in typing motions. It may actually get to the point, in fact, that this hypothetical person cannot compose while dictating or writing by hand, because the words-into-strings neurons are so bound up with the finger maps of typing.

I know the feeling. I find it very difficult, myself, to write anything without talking, and I write my second language by hand much more than by computer--so much so that I must begin my essays on paper, because I write as fluidly in my second language as I type in my first. But even beyond that, in my day sans technology, I kept a record of the "posts that might have been"--the random thoughts that, on a normal day, sometimes get posted on the internet on my favorite micro-blogging site. Most of the posts in potentia stick fairly strictly to 140 characters (in itself surprising--I'm rather a wordy person), but one in particular amuses me in its sheer enormity. There's no reason why, when I have more to say than will fit into the space allowed at a micro-blogging site, that I shouldn't just blog about it instead (I obviously have a blog, and there might be others, for the ninja is sneaky). I could even write an e-mail to some trusted soul! Yet I wrote more than 10 responses of roughly the same length and division that I would have if I had actually been constrained to 140 characters--my mind finds it easier now, after nearly 2 years of almost daily micro-blogging, to divide enormous chunks of material into bite-sized pieces than to just write it all in a lump.

A Day Without Technology

Wendell Berry wrote a very interesting article called Why I am NOT Going to Buy a Computer. As he points out in both the original article and his responses to the letters that the article provoked, he is a well-known conservationist, and tries to be as little dependent on fossil fuel as possible. He listed at the end his criteria for adopting new technology--

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

I'll be honest--I have never thought about the issues raised here. Computers have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, so questioning whether they are a good thing or not, for me, is like questioning whether, if you think hard enough, the ceiling can become the floor (ninjas have many skills, but we are still not spiders). I have given more thought to, and it has been easier for me to think about, the implications of my eating habits than to this slim piece of technology that I use literally every. day.

It is actually easier for me to fast, to go a day without eating, than to go a day without my laptop--even without one single website! Fasting technology is a big deal for me--in no small part because so much of my schoolwork requires not only a computer, but the internet. For one of my classes, the reading material is entirely online, for another I have internet exercises, for another 3/4 of the questions for my homework assignments live on a website, for another I write reports in Microsoft Word, and for yet another I write essays and even have a blog! Out of 5 classes, only one does not assume that I have access to a computer with internet, and I still use a computer for one aspect of it.

Far be it from a ninja, though, to conceal truth--I do have one segment of technology that I can give up without dire consequences to my grades, and that would be my favorite social network. You would never guess it from my blog posts, but my favorite method of communication with the outside world constrains me to 140 characters or less--a micro-blogging site. So for an experiment, a technology fast if you will, I neglected this site for a full day.

The result of the experiment was about half an hour, after I returned from the day's classes, where I nearly exploded. I seriously considered going to another social networking site and creating an account just to scratch the itch that not visiting my standard site created. Fortunately the madness passed, and I had one of my most productive afternoons ever--but that itself makes one wonder, doesn't it? Those of us that use these terribly addictive sites know that they're time-sucks, call them time-sucks, and completely ignore in our use Berry's 9th rule, above--that new technology shouldn't replace or disrupt what was there and good and worked.

There's enough material in this diminutive essay and my responses to it for another 3 blog posts, but I won't bend your ears any longer--to think I started this with the modest goal of 500 words!