Sort Your Brain Out
The scientific evidence regarding the impact of intensive technology use on young people has slowly but surely been accumulating over the past decade or so. The results are now in and the message is unequivocal: excessive use of screens is screwing our kids up.
A petition has been lodged with the UK parliament to consider banning smartphones for all under 16s on the basis of the suffering it has caused many young people over the past decade or so.
Adolescence is a time of trial and error, of the highest emotional highs and the lowest lows. By adulthood most of us have accrued enough experience to have an instinct on the right way to deal with most situations. But adults often forget that as children our instincts were usually very unreliable because, without enough time to develop extensive experience, instincts are driven primarily by the urge to experiment.
At the onset of puberty the grey matter reaches maximum thickness and that key process of maturation, neuronal pruning, begins in the adolescent brain. This process does not occur uniformly across the whole brain but instead starts at the back of the brain and gradually progresses towards the front of the brain over a period of several years.
I recently presented a film for the charity GamCare, using VR to take someone on a tour of the brain regions involved in gambling. YouTuber and UK boxer Viddal popped in briefly for a quick interview about the impact of gambling on adolescent brains.
Why are some people resilient and other people more vulnerable? Is there a distinctive hallmark of resilience in the brain? Are there ways to help build resilience in young people? These are the questions we will be tackling in this months brain blog.
Prosocial behaviours encouraged by volunteering enable young people to trust and be trusted – the glue that holds groups together to foster a sense of belonging.
Portraying healthy eating as a way to “stick it to the man” – and thus appealing to the typical adolescent’s soft spot for rebellion – seems a clever way of harnessing these instincts in a way that might just help teens keep their body weight in check.
“The talk was inspirational for staff and students alike. The students enjoyed your informal yet informative style. You made difficult concepts easy to grasp. They especially liked how you applied these high level ideas to their everyday lives and studying. You were witty andmost importantly not in the slightest bit patronising.”
Male pigeons were getting all ruffed up, pirouetting like whirling dervishes, in the hope of taking the fancy of their target lady pigeon. Then my attention landed on the humans directly in front of me, and from my vantage point atop a council-provided public rowing machine, I observed courtship behaviours that were not dissimilar.