Less is More

Photo: fox.temple.edu

From a article entitled "I Can't Think!" published in Newsweek:

"The Twitterization of our culture has revolutionized our lives, but with an unintended consequence: our overloaded brains freeze when we have to make decisions. "

The article went on to discuss a recent study conducted at the Center for Neural Decision Making at Temple University. The following 2 paragraphs stood out to me:

"As the information load increased...so did activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region behind the forehead that is responsible for decision making and control of emotions. But as the researchers gave the [volunteers]  more and more information, activity in the dorsolateral PFC suddenly fell off, as if a circuit breaker had popped."

"The research should give pause to anyone addicted to incoming texts and tweets. The booming science of decision making has shown that more information can lead to objectively poorer choices, and to choices that people come to regret. It has shown that an unconscious system guides many of our decisions, and that it can be sidelined by too much information."

Our good decisions are sidelined by too much information. Every time I visit Twitter, or Facebook, and see the endless stream of links, promotions, thoughts, ideas, pictures, complaints, opinions & random words I want to just log out quickly; and every time I read an article such as this I put it in the framework of how it must affect our kids. How overloaded are they? How many kids endlessly text on cell phones-sometimes 3 or 4 friends at a time? How many are on My Yearbook, My Space, Meebo or Facebook for hours daily? How many go to school and are subjected to information and homework bombardment and standardized testing preparation, as their art, music and athletic programs are being cut out entirely? How many of these kids are being diagnosed with a plethora of conditions from ADHD to depression and put on medication because they can't make decisions, focus on or finish anything? Are they too suffering from information overload?

Understanding how the brain works will help us understand how to minimize some of the problems. The human brain has three forms of memory: Sensory, Long-term and Short-term.

Sensory memory is the initial contact for stimuli and lasts about 200–500 milliseconds after an item is perceived through one of the senses. The ability to hear instructions & remember them, or to look at an item, and remember what it looked like with just a second of observation, are two examples. Sensory memory is only capable of retaining information for a very short period of time.

In a study of sensory memory conducted by George Sperling (1963) the maximum capacity of sensory memory was found to be approximately 12 items, but that number drops very quickly (within a few hundred milliseconds). Because this form of memory degrades so quickly, participants would see a display, but be unable to report all of the items (12 in all) before they decayed. This type of memory cannot be prolonged by rehearsal or repetition which would explain why your child forgets the 3 or 4 tasks or commands you just rattled off to them.

Long-term memory is just like unlimited hard-drive space & can store much more information for very long durations (such as an entire life span).  We can remember social security numbers, passwords and telephone numbers for many years through repetition of use. Information retained in this way is said to be stored in long-term memory.

Short-term memory functions much like a very small RAM and is capable to hold only about five to nine (seven is an average) items at a time. Retrieving information longer than this will require it to be grouped together into seven units, or store it in long-term memory.

For example, given a random seven-digit number we may remember it for only a few seconds before forgetting, suggesting it was stored in our short-term memory. On the other hand, remembering your bank password, safe code, childhood phone number or address is somewhat easier due to repetition and commitment to long term memory.

We can use the results of the Temple Study and the knowledge of how our memory works to begin to clear out the verbal and visual clutter & communicate better with each other, especially with our kids and with our students. Its important for kids to learn this too. A good rule of thumb when giving instructions, delegating tasks, outlining steps to problem solving, or introducing yoga, karate, dance or exercise sequences to children or teens, (especially sensory or cognitively challenged) is that less is more. Aim to keep it to 1 or 2 items, (or 1-2 written or spoken words), per age of child, but no more than 7 at a time. Otherwise, you are very likely to trigger an overload and the emotions and upheaval that accompany it.

I show all of the students that I work with a very simple technique to combat this overload. Its a meditation, only I don't call it that. I call it Imagery or simply "relaxation". They can use it anywhere and anytime they feel like they need it- at home, school or anywhere. Essentially, they unplug & turn off everything electronic, and sit quietly thinking of a place (such as the beach) or an object (such as a starfish, flower or a sea shell) and I teach them to use their imagination to focus only on that one thing. (younger kids have an easier time using an object at first)

You can do this at home with your child before overload becomes a permanent problem. Keep a small collection of river stones, shells or other small toys or objects in a jar, and when a need arises for relaxation, have them take one of the objects out, sit or lie down & study it for a minute. Then, close their eyes and imagine it in detail. I've had my 'Hyperactive" students sit for up to 20 minutes doing this exercise. The kids ask for it (especially my teen girls) and they are asking for it because its something their taxed brains and emotions desperately need.

The growing human brain needs down time every day, like the lungs need air and the cells need water.

While technology can be a useful tool to bring people together and create collaborations that may not have been possible otherwise, please take care to use it responsibly and teach your kids to do the same. When it comes to communicating, less is more.


Related Articles:

The Myth of Meditation

I Can't Think!

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