© Reuters, For Canwest News ServiceDevices such as the iPhone may actually be changing the way we think.
"Sup? Lst wknd wz gr8. Cw2cu agn . . . ttyl!"
A message from outer space or a text about a fun weekend and the promise to touch base soon? If you're a digital immigrant -- Statistics Canada says only 27 per cent of Canadians don't text, tweet and Google away their hours -- chances are, it sounds like a foreign language spoken by a generation you can't fathom.
But according to prominent American neuroscientist Dr. Gary Small, this lack of understanding is more than just a generation gap. In fact, spurred by the technological web of mobile phones, computers, the Internet and video games, we are in the midst of what he calls "a brain gap," in which the younger generation doesn't just look and sound different; their brains are rapidly evolving to such an extent they actually function differently, too.
"Because of the current technological revolution," says Small, author of
iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind (HarperCollins, 2009), "our brains are evolving right now -- at a speed like never before."
And it's starting at a very early age. While every human is born with the same circuitry, give or take some genetic variations, "studies show that our environment moulds the shape and function of our brains, as well, and it can do so to the point of no return," he says.
In fact, by adolescence, 60 per cent of the brain's synapses, or connection sites between cells, have been pruned to suit dominant learning experiences. In other words, for "digital natives" who have grown up with constant, daily exposure, technology stimulates brain cells and neurotransmitter release, sparking the evolution of new neural pathways -- and weakening old ones.
