How Many Ways Can Our Brain Be Divided?
Excerpts from “the new brain” by Richard Restak, M.D.
“But I think the process of personal dis-integration is furthered by our constant exposure to the media, principally television.” pg. 41
“Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span” pg. 45
Everywhere I go I can see the effects of media. It seems like everyone has a hand held device that gives some sort of entertainment.
The kid riding a bike? Headphones.
The guy driving a car? Instant messaging on cell phone.
The girl at the dinner table with her parents? Headphones.
I thoughtfully look at the word that Dr. Restak used when describing the media. Personal dis-integration.
Integration is the process of combining incoming information and is one of the functions of the nervous system.
When you are reading a book about let’s say the illiad, and you are using your imagination to actively think about and process what is being read about, you are using your mind. You are using the pathways that have been built when you were a child as you were first learning. These pathways are the very center of our imagination and capability of thought.
You are combining incoming information. This is Integration.
So what is happening when one relies completely on an outside stimulus for “Entertainment?”
You may have your own take on it………..unless of course you are watching t.v, but it seems to me that you are overriding the processes that naturally happen as you day dream, or read a book, or color, or put together a puzzle, or think. When there is no effort on your part to make electricity shoot down those pathways, (thought) then you are completely overriding the system that you use to think.
When this system is overridden and overridden and this outside stimuli is used as a faux Integration it leads to an atrophy of the brain. This stimulus is telling your mind that it has what it needs and you need not come up with anything on your own. Your mind is left completely dormant.
It dis-integrates.
No wonder this society has a short attention span. They are completely reliant on media to think for them.
You can figure the moral out for yourself.
Heres a Hint……… All things in moderation.
