Digitální demence – Spitzer Manfred (2014)

Digital media — computers, smartphones, gaming consoles, and last but not least, televisions — are changing our lives. In the USA today, adolescents spend more time on digital media — at least seven and a half hours a day — than sleeping. This is according to a representative study conducted on a sample of more than two thousand children and adolescents aged eight to eighteen. The foundations of our civilization are at risk. We are clicking our brains out of our heads. Digital media are freeing us from the necessity of performing mental work. What we used to do simply using our minds is now handled by computers, smartphones, organizers, and navigation systems. This carries immense danger, says neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer. The research results he mentions are alarming. Addiction to digital media is developing. In the long term, they harm the body and especially the mind. Once we stop exerting mental effort, our memory weakens. Neural connections die off, and new ones do not survive because they are not needed. The ability to learn is dramatically declining among children and adolescents due to digital media, resulting in attention and reading disorders, anxiety and apathy, sleep disorders and depression, obesity, tendencies toward violence, and societal decline. Spitzer expresses concerns about this development, and...