Kelly sits down with Richard Cytowic, MD, Professor of Neurology at George Washington University and the author of “Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age.” 

We share a mutual dislike of having screens everywhere. 

“This is why I say that screens are like secondhand smoke. They insist on being looked at, and we’ve all experienced this in waiting rooms and airport lounges. If there’s a big screen on, particularly if it’s got the crawl with the news going at the bottom, we cannot help but look at it. And, in fact, trying not to look at the screen takes more energy in terms of the brain is concerned than does paying attention to something.” 

And it’s a problem when we carry around these smart phones – especially in a learning context. 

“The flash of the screen is in the whoosh! If there is a whoosh for the text notification, it’s going to seize your attention. And there have been experiments done where they had students do some sort of easy test. And if they had put their phone in another room, they did the best. If it was just face down on the desk next to you, you did pretty poorly. And the worst performers were the ones who had their phones with them all the time.” 

You have a chapter titled ‘Selfies Kill More People Than Sharks.” 

I was surprised to find out that this is true. Yes. People fall off the edge of the Grand Canyon. They fall off the edge of cliffs. You know, parents have died while taking a picture of themselves, having stepped over the security barrier, and their children were there to watch this happen. I mean, you can Google ‘ridiculous selfie deaths,’ and they’re so tuned into this performative aspect of ‘I’ve got to do something that is so fabulous, and post worthy on the Internet or whatever that I’m willing to risk my life.” 

Photo Credit: Todd Franson