Well, allow me to say, DUH!
NYT article image
Your Brain on Computers – Overuse of Digital Devices May Lead to Brain Fatigue – NYTimes.com.
This subject keeps coming up in the news. No surprise really. I’ve made a few comments here (on Cognitive Load Theory) and here (trying to fix education by making school longer).
Why don’t people accept that we really do need downtime in order to learn? The brain needs some space from time to time to organize itself – it can’t do that if it’s constantly being interrupted. Don’t simply assume that it is enough to sleep 6 or 7 hours a night – we actually need time, awake, when we’re not listening to talk or reading.
To be fair, it is much harder for people living in cities (especially big cities) to find solitude than it is for us rural types. It’s possible though – just turn off your TV and walk away from your computer and your cellphone for a while – it’ll still be there in an hour, and I’m almost willing to guarantee that you won’t have missed much.
I have often said that doing high tech stuff and living on a farm affords me the balance to see both in interesting ways and I’m convinced that’s true. I don’t claim to have better self-discipline than the average person – I’m quite sure that if I didn’t have so many animals that needed daily attention I’d spend most of my time in front of my computer.
But I do,
so I can’t,
and it’s good for me.
The time I spend ‘alone’ working outside with the animals is important to my general well-being – even when I have water in my boots, poo on my shirt, and scratches all over my arms.
And on that note, I’m going outside to do morning chores and to finish putting up the electric fence. That pesky fox needs to be reminded that the ducks are not his personal dinner buffet. This morning when I went out to put the horses in the pasture for the day I saw that that little bugger left his(her?) traditional calling card (some scat) right on my front door step.
Again.
Cheeky bugger.
