In their new awareness-raising campaign, Orange makes a big announcement: ” We all have great powers. We all have great responsibilities “
Today, our consciousness is focused on the digital world, rather than on ourselves and the world. This hyper-connected world engages our brains everywhere and all the time, except here and now. While we can’t go against evolution, which is the development of technology and digital technology, we are nevertheless responsible for the way we perceive and use this technology. But we are also responsible for the way we let it impact our cognitive functions and our relationship with the world.
Protecting our cognition and our relationships will first and foremost require awareness. We need to take a step back from the way we work. This faculty is called metacognition, and describes the act of reflecting on one’s own mental processes.
Digital and cognitive performance: the losing duo
Digital technology impacts a wide range of cognitive functions, from our memory and attention span to our sleep patterns and emotional regulation. Digital even influences the color of our dreams!
Because of this digital transformation and the multiplication of means of communication, we must constantly capture, process and return information in very large numbers. Our brains are therefore bombarded relentlessly, forcing them to multi-task… which they can’t if they want to remain efficient. Concentration on a single task becomes very difficult.
It’s important to understand that even our brain, this incredible machine, has its own limits, and that it can sometimes become overloaded. To protect itself from this overload, our brain sets up a natural barrier: an attentional filter. This means that it selects the information it needs to pay attention to. However, it can only process a certain number of items of information. Beyond this threshold, sorting becomes more difficult, and some important information falls by the wayside, to the benefit of useless, meaningless information. The problem is that in our hyper-connected, digitalized society, this information processing limit is reached very quickly. Not being aware of this over-solicitation can have a profound impact on a person’s efficiency and well-being.
Our relationship with others changes depending on how we use digital technology
Digital influences the way we think, behave and interact with others.
The images below, taken from an awareness campaign that has been repeatedly relayed on Facebook in recent days, illustrate very well the studies we are about to talk about:
Very recently, a study published by the Chicago-based Journal of the Association of Consumer Research, showed that the simple fact of having your phone in a room, even when switched off and even if you make every effort to ignore it, still reduces your available cognitive capacity. In fact, picking up information spontaneously from our environment is done without any conscious effort, yet it represents an energy cost for our brain (as we explained above). Energy which it cannot then allocate to other tasks or other information. As a result, receiving a text message notification while having a drink with friends, for example, distracts our attention. Even if you don’t open the text message, you’re already no longer 100% attentive to the other person and the world. And the more dependent you are on your device, the greater this cognitive cost.
Your phone on the table can diminish the pleasure of a dinner with friends
Add to this the fact that another study by researchers at the University of British Columbia showed that even a short, quick use of the phone during a drink with friends was enough to reduce your enjoyment of the moment.
In this study, people who had their phone next to them during a drink or dinner with friends not only used it more often, but also reported less interest in the relationship and less pleasure in interacting with the person.
Your relationship with digital could be hindering your ability to empathize
Even more worryingly, a study has shown that the more distracted you are during a conversation, the harder it is to feel so-called deep emotions such as empathy. For the simple reason that it’s easier to feel empathy for someone whose facial expressions and non-verbal behavior you perceive. When you’re constantly distracted by a call or a message arriving on your phone, it’s harder to feel deep emotions for the other person, including empathy.
The study also shows that empathetic people tend to spend less time on their phones and social networks than less empathetic people.
The time has come to realize that mankind’s use of digital technology is detrimental not only to its cognitive capacities, but also to its relationships with others and its emotions. At Open Mind, we’re convinced that technology can be put to good use to help you get to know yourself and your environment better. The time has come to realize that digital technology, and technology in general, must be used to improve your life.
