By Richard E. Cytowic 

WHAT HAPPENS WHERE THERE IS NO ONE TO LOOK IN THE EYE?

Review by Gunnel Minett

Are we becoming ‘humans doing’ rather than ‘human beings’, the author asks in this book. He is concerned about the rapid change in the way we relate to IT. In particular our heavy use of the internet and mobile phones. Not only has modern technology profoundly changed the way we access information, it has also detached us from traditional human interaction.

Should we be worried by this development? Yes, says Cytowic, mainly because we are  not yet completely clear what the longterm effects will be. Smartphones have only been around for about 15 years, which is a trivial amount of time in terms of the evolutionary process. However, mobile phones have brought about a profound change in the daily lives of many people. Our use of them is on par with many forms of serious addiction. 

One thing we do know, Cytowic says, is that our brains have not changed very much since stone age times. This means that our brains are adjusted to a very different pace of life than we have today. For hundreds of thousands of years, our brains where fine tuned to react to an environment in which we functioned as part of nature. No artificial noises or bright lights, a much slower pace and only face-to-face interactions with both fellow humans and animals. We were very well adapted to this environment. 

But the industrial revolution started to change all this and it became more difficult for the brain to cope. And now the IT revolution has changed things even more drastically and in an even shorter time than the industrialisation process. In a very short period of time, we have moved from face-to-face conversations, to the telephone, and now to zoom or FaceTime, etc.. Many adolescents in particular have moved even further from verbal conversations into text messaging. 

Although the change from stone age tranquility to modern cyber life has been dramatic, we’ve yet to see the full consequence for the brain, Cytowic argues. For adults the change has been substantial and there are many clear signs of adults being totally addicted to their phones and computer screens. But generation Z (born around 2000) has grown up with the new technology. How their brains have been effected is not yet clear at all. 

It is only recently that any observations have been made as to the effects of the new technology on the developing brain, but it’s already clear that mobile phones and other such devices are making changes to the brains of growing children. In particular when such devices are used as a substitute for human child care. Psychological problems among teenagers are already showing up in the statistics, even though there still hasn’t been enough research to establish a clear link between cause and effect. 

Research has however made it clear that a growing brain needs other brains to learn from. Children learn from copying others. They need human faces to study so that they can learn facial expressions, empathy and how to optimise social interaction. Although social interaction can take place on internet platforms, this is not an adequate substitute for face to face interaction. And watching film clips, regardless of how educational they claim to be, will not provide the necessary two-way communication a growing brain requires. Cytowic draws a parallel with experiments on monkeys: they preferred a fluffy piece of cloth to a wire model of a mother monkey, even if the latter provided some additional comforts. This illustrated the depth of their conditioning natural behaviour. The internet is often full of ‘additional attractions’ courtesy of clever developers, that tend to hook the users with carefully designed bates. But as Cytowic illustrates, this only leads to addiction, with no added benefits.

The book gives multiple examples of the effects of excessive IT use. Just reading the chapter headings gives a clear impression of this; such as ‘brain drain’, ‘virtual autism’, ‘brain energy cost of screen distraction’, ‘degrading ability for empathy’, ‘sleep deprivation from blue screen light’, ‘googlised’ minds, to name just a few. It also deals with new phenomena such as FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and other more severe symptoms that growing brains suffer from when they are exposed to virtual internet reality rather than to real life. 

Cytowic puts a lot of the blame on the negative effects of our use of IT technology on the developers of social platforms and other internet devices. They often hire neuroscience experts, not to provide the safest way to use their devices, but rather how to develop the most addictive way to attract users to their platforms. In the authors words; “By themselves, modern devises don’t confer power because they only serve up factoids. What you do with them is the point. We are in the mess we’re in because corporations have deftly commandeered our Stone Age brain, which can’t help but glom on to novelty and change because that is what it evolved to do.”(p57)

The book presents a frightening picture as to how a new technology has, in a very short time, had a massive effect on our brains and behaviour. The author compares our innocence and naivety in using these new devices with way cigarettes were promoted when they first came on the market. In the case of cigarettes, science eventually caught up and informed us of their lethal effects. This book makes a similar wake-up call. It’s a must read for anyone who wants to use the new technology while avoiding its negative side-effects. 

The MIT Press, USA, 2024, Hardcover, ISBN: 9780262049009