Keynote, Day 3: "Is Technology Changing Our Brains?"

Presented by Josh Hanagarne, Salt Lake City Public Library

The speaker's premise is that heavy Internet usage actually reduces people's ability to focus and concentrate, and his talk was a fascinating exploration of the possible ramifications.

Hanagarne is a librarian who has Tourette syndrome, which causes involuntary movements and vocalizations (although very few were evidenced in his talk), and he's had to work harder than most to be able to focus and have an attention span.

Hanagarne is a lifelong reader and lover of books (I lost count of the number of titles he referenced).  During the year when he completed his library science degree, he spent a great deal of time online.  Afterwards, he went back to pleasure reading but found that it was more difficult than before.  After reading about 3 paragraphs or so, he would find it difficult to concentrate.

The speaker polled the audience, some of whom had experienced the same issue.

What might this mean?  Think about what your brain does.  Every day it reconstructs your reality.  It stores your past.  It is your decision-making machine.  We’d do well to pay attention when it changes. 

He described two types of memory: Long-term memory (a filing cabinet) and working memory (sticky notes).  Good brain functioning is moving as many of sticky notes as possible to the filing cabinet.  He described the brain of an addict as hyperassociation that something makes you feel much better than it should; and unwillingness to be uncomfortable for a time; asking, what would fighting Internet addiction look like? 

Questions he posed: Are we lonely and jealous as a result of checking social media?  Does it change our habits or manners (talking to someone while texting).  Does it change the way we think?  Does it change the way we think about ourselves and our identities?  Do we view ourselves as dropdown menus, limiting ourselves to a fixed number of choices that are defined by others?  Does it change the nature of experience? (Experiencing something vs. experiencing and sharing on social media).

What is it doing to critical thinking?  Can we engage with a long page of writing where every piece of language needs to be understood and unpacked?  (He quoted Orwell that stripping away images is a way to rob something of its emotional power.) Can we figure things out for ourselves vs. having to look them up on Google? Can we engage with ideas without distractions?  Do we still have the mental ability to concentrate?

He suggested that libraries exist to make people freer, but that we're not free to answer questions that never occur to us.