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Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrom Of Our Era

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Technology has become an inseparable part of modern life, enhancing the speed of every action and increasing the pressure on human brain. It might appear that with innovations in every aspect of daily routine people should be able to have more free time and perform their tasks one by one without any hurry. On the other hand, they also could have become used to the necessity of being involved with more than one issue at the same time, and thus should be able to be constantly busy. However, it is not that simple. All of the aspects of modern life are not exclusively beneficial or solely harmful for human beings, because this impact is multifaceted and complex. According to Richard Restak's Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrom of Our Era, people …show more content…

It is not some kind of higher authority that forces them, but their own lifestyles which require of them to react to numerous external influences. Multitasking is considered to be useful by some, since it allows one to complete several tasks during the period of time which could have been spent on one problem only. Nevertheless, there are also disadvantages. As it was mentioned before, one cannot truly concentrate on multiple things at the same time, so the tasks which were performed simultaneously may not produce as efficient results as the tasks completed one at a time. Consequently, everything has to be checked twice or redone, while overall productivity and quality gradually decrease. Moreover, frontal lobes are being constantly disturbed during this process, for they have to switch and relocate objectives, as well as to mobilize new procedures of operations. Since human brain cannot be rewired through adaptation, this constant interruption causes stress and anxiety, which are damaging not only for the brain, but for the whole body as well. Learning becomes impossible, because the brain is already busy enough while trying to manage everything at once. Thus, new information does not remain and long-term memory is not able to function properly. Also, different sensory experiences are activated and one does not fully live in the moment. For instance, if someone answers email while having dinner, he or she will not experience the taste of the food as it is, but only a part of it. What is more, the letter sent via email will not be as informative and well-composed as it could have been if this person had chosen to do one thing at a time. Finally, multitasking might be dangerous – let us come back to the example with the person who talks on the phone while driving. This is very likely to result in an accident, since the driver does not pay all of the attention to the road. The more

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