Your stone age brain in the screen age Coping with digital distraction and sensory overload

The priority for young kids should be face-to-face communications, physical activity, and sleep, not screen time. Cytowic, a neurologist who writes "The Fallible Mind" column for Psychology Today, argues that the online world is one of hyperstimulation. As he notes, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings once said his company's top competitor was sleep. Cytowic also points out parallels between compulsive screen use and drug addiction. Why do people obsess so much over what foods they put in their bodies, he wonders, but overlook the "mental garbage" they consume, "arguably more harmful than an occasional cheeseburger"? He tucks in an alarming reminder or two, including the "selfie deaths" of three college students who were trying to snap themselves in front of an oncoming train. Advocates of paper and pencil will applaud his message that students are more likely to retain lesson material if they take hand-written notes than if they type their notes on electronic devices. Screens "degrade attention, memory, and thinking, along with sleep, mood, and concentration." Cytowic's commonsense takeaway--Use technology less and only on what really matters.