Your smartphone is destroying your memory

mojo

mojo

Adept
Your Android and iOS phones are killing cognitive thinking and declarative memory, say experts

Dr Hozefa A Bhinderwala, psychiatrist at Saifee and Prince Aly Khan Hospital, received a call from his brother last week. "He said, 'You are the doctor, but I performed a surgery today'."

The specialist's brother was referring to having managed to get his nine-year-old son to let go off his smartphone, which he was worried had grown into "an extended limb". "As soon as my brother would get back home, his son would grab the phone and stay glued to it right until bedtime, playing games and fiddling with apps," says the psychiatrist.

This is not a lone case. Dr Sangeeta Ravat, Head of the Department of Neurology at Seth G S Medical College and KEM Hospital, says the co-relation between mild Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (significant difficulties of inattention and impulsiveness or a combination of the two) among young adults and the excessive use of gadgets has been the subject of debate at recent medical conferences.

And if the Indian smartphone user study is accurate, we have reason to worry. The survey conducted by AC Nielsen across 46 cities in September and October 2012 revealed that the number of smartphones had touched 40 million, and almost half of the users were under 25. The dramatic growth was driven by a desire 'to stay connected and have instant access to social networking sites', it said.

Although the gadgets are designed to make life easier, and the user, work-smart, experts warn that their unrelenting pings and blitzkrieg of updates can throw the brain into overdrive, affecting its cells and blunting the mind over time. Here's all that's at stake:

Read more @SOURCE
 
its a toi article which only concentrates on negatives and selectively discards the positives. btw, is toi the playboy of india? all the pages in it have some soft porn videos or links on them. cant understand how no one complains about this site to our moral police.
 
^^ What you said about TOI might be true, but the gist of the article isn't. It is a fact that kids nowadays are glued to ipads and iphones and playstations more than taking the time to go out and play. The parents are to blame in most cases. If you take the time and effort to connect to your kid, and teach him/her how enjoyable it is to go and play out in the real world with real friends, situations like these can be avoided.
 
logistopath said:
^^ What you said about TOI might be true, but the gist of the article isn't. It is a fact that kids nowadays are glued to ipads and iphones and playstations more than taking the time to go out and play. The parents are to blame in most cases. If you take the time and effort to connect to your kid, and teach him/her how enjoyable it is to go and play out in the real world with real friends, situations like these can be avoided.
Click to expand...

what you say is partially true. how many societies have amenities for children to play some field events like basketball or cricket without getting shouted at by some angry member since he thinks they might break his precious window? After paying crores for a flat most people get only cages to live in. There are no gardens nearby and no grounds. Some lucky people living in places which have these dont allow children to play since it will spoil the lawn. Kids are like small dogs where they need ample space to run and jump and play and exert themselves to develop. You dont get such luxuries in flats or small cooped up spaces. Even the gym wont help in such matters since there are not many gyms devoted to outdoor sports everywhere. The few ones charge a lot just to come inside their premises. Then you have those parents who always keep telling their kids to study or have put their kids in so many different classes that the child wont have time to go out to play. Such kids only have one option - to play indoor games like board games, carrom, chess, cards, computer games, mobile games etc.

All of us are responsible for this mess. The parents, the builders, the govt, and the children too. Parents dont allow the kids to play, builders build only flats and nothing else. They dont keep open greenery or grounds nearby since they dont care and want to make a quick buck out of everything. Govt has no strict building norms that require greenery or mandatory public spaces around certain number of buildings. Children never complain about this, grow up in these surroundings and then do the same to their children.
 
@6pack Agreed mostly. We live in a concrete jungle. Still, lack of amenities should not be a deterrent to outdoor activity. That is just a lame reason given by parents who can't take the efforts to spend quality time with their kids. Also, you can engage your child in meaningful activity even inside the confines of your home. I am not just talking about sports. Things like doing small projects together, cleaning your car/two wheeler, indoor games, cooking, etc. We as parents should sit and play or work with them, rather than us minding our jobs and asking our kids to "go do something".
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Great discussion - this is an area of smartphone usage that we often ignore. Some of the parent could be blamed too - they will stick to their smartphones the whole time they are at home and with kids. And as soon as the kids grow up to something like 12 or 13, they will get a smartphone of their own.
 
goodakash said:
There was a time when I could remember phone numbers of most of my friends, relatives....but ask me today and I remember at most 3-4 numbers !
Click to expand...
How true........ Now I dont even remember my son's number. But that has become the order of the day. When technology develops some personal skills are bound to be victims.
 
Back
Top