A 2008 article by Nicholas Carr begins with the quote from Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The hero in the film is disconnecting the memory circuits of the computer, HAL, while HAL says, ‘my mind is going’. Carr likens this scene to his own feelings in relation to what technology is doing to his brain. While he doesn’t believe his brain is ‘going’, he does feel it is changing, and some of these changes are cause for concern.

Parents and teachers also are concerned about the effects of technology on children’s brains. So do we have something to worry about?

The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

As brain science becomes more precise we are learning more and more about exactly how use of technology changes the brain. One of the most obvious changes is that children who spend long periods of screen time online, and particularly who do most of their reading online, find it difficult to concentrate. Interestingly, the volume of reading they do is increasing as text messaging, tweeting and emailing increases and young people spend hours online skimming from site to site. The concern is this style of reading that focuses on ‘efficiency’ and ‘immediacy’ rather than deep reading and interpreting is affecting brain circuitry and making to harder for out children to interpret what they read and make rich mental connections. The fear is that over time the circuits children build in their brains through the kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes will disappear.

When we read well written texts and when children are encouraged to spend periods in sustained, undistracted reading, they develop the ability to draw inference and analogies and foster creativity; all characteristics of deep thinking. In the two books in my Niello Necklace Mysteries, my main character has a photographic memory, which helps him not only to remember but also to make deep connections. This makes it possible for him to solve the mystery and escape the danger he finds himself in. I can’t help but wonder if over-use of technology will see the end of the photographic memory as brain wiring changes due to the constant distraction.

There have been some interesting studies on what happens when children are immersed in technology. Some of the findings are:

• As they use technology more frequently, students do not explore information in a deep or reflective manner. Most stop searching at ‘good enough’, rather than trying to find the best source and some view the internet as way to complete schoolwork quickly and painlessly, often by plagiarising articles online, rather than engaging with complex material.
• Students visiting popular research sites skim articles, hopping from one source to another, typically reading no more than one or two pages of an article before they move on and although they save long articles, do not appear to return and actually read them.
• As the brain evolves and focuses on new technological skills, it drifts away from fundamental social skills. The effect of this is to increase the awkwardness of social interaction and the likelihood that people misinterpret, or miss completely, non-verbal cues. There are, of course, political and social implications when complex negotiations are derailed by the inability of diplomats, for example, to recognise non-verbal signals.
• The change in brain wiring has resulted in young people becoming expert at multi-tasking. This has resulted in the brain craving instant gratification and this affects the brain so that while digital users can make instant decisions in order to achieve a reward, they have trouble thinking ahead to the future. Evidence also suggests that students have an increased frequency of errors due to multi-tasking and low attention spans.
• Constant stimulation, caused by juggling information, provokes ‘squirts’ of dopamine that can be addictive and result in people feeling bored in the absence of constant stimuli. The resulting distractions can have deadly consequences, such as the car accidents caused by drivers texting while they negotiate traffic; or financial consequences when important e-mail messages are overlooked amidst the number landing in inboxes from day to day.

Not all of the research, however, is negative and some suggests that young people haven’t changed at all it’s just that we blame technology for problems young people have always had. For example, researchers have found that young people have poor search skills and this holds true whether they are searching the Internet or paper based resources. They have difficulty formulating appropriate search terms, do not try to find alternative terms when the original search fails and their grasp of commands are ‘confused and easily forgotten’. Furthermore, because teachers have the view that most students are competent online, they fail to supply specific instruction.

Similarly, the common criticism that technology has reduced the time young people spend reading seems not to hold up under scrutiny. A range of surveys has shown that young people are reading more than previously; with books read regularly by 49% of young people and magazines by 41%. In a survey in England the findings were that the majority of children read every day or once/twice a week and half the children surveyed agreed they enjoyed reading ‘very much’ or ‘quite a lot’

Research into electronic media also found that content was more important to young viewers than the web design or visual information. While children might initially be drawn ‘to the novelty, colour, sound and animation…the novelty effect faded (and) it was interesting content that motivated children to return to the site’.

The argument, put forward earlier, that young people are losing valuable social skills can also be refuted to some extent. Video games, for example, aren’t just about repetitive tasks. Many of them have strong social components that allow students to communicate and solve problems together; texting is not about the technology but about connecting with others; and a myriad of mobile devices allow young people to connect with people all over the world at any time.

Some research that documents the traces the Internet leaves on sensitive young brains shows that people who play a lot of action video games process visual information more quickly than those who don’t and are likely to be better scanners of information. The implication is that in a world where the volume of information grows exponentially from year to year, if not week to week, this is a skill that may be of more advantage than some of the ‘traditional’ skills of the past. There is indeed evidence that technology can train the brain in positive ways. Surgeons who play video games, for instance, make fewer surgical errors and complete the surgery more quickly. They have improved reaction times and better peripheral vision (Small & Vorgan, 2008).

So is technology sizzling our child’s brains? Probably not, as long as we are aware of the effects and compensate by ensuring children read extended texts and socialise away from their electronic devices every day.