Attention Defecit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era

In Richard Restak’s essay “Attention Defecit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era” he talks about the development of the human brain and how society and technology has forced our brains to adapt and change. There are pros and cons to the brain adapting to our new era of technology and social modernization such as: the positive way in which our brains can now multi task at an increasingly better rate than before, the negative way in which our brains multitask too much and cause things like ADHD, and how some people now lack the ability to stay focused and concentrate on the goal ahead of them.

Before technology was as advanced as it is today, people did not have to deal with the social media and technological differences that we have today. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagran,tv , video games etc. Now, with all these new social media websites and television shows, many people are now multitasking without even knowing it. If you think about it, males who watch Sportcenter or the news multitask every day without even knowing it, thanks to the invention of the crawler in television. The crawler is said to be, “a line of moving type that provided information on other news items” (Restak 332) at the bottom of the screen on televisions. Basically, when reading the crawler you multitask without even knowing it, coiderin you are reading while watching the hioghlights as well. The same thing is now happening with cell phones and texting. People have now trained themselves to text while doing anything, whether it is while driving, watching T.V., walking around, etc. Even in mid conversation people have learned to text and keep on with their story. How can this new era of multitasking be a positive thing? Simply put, due to our brains developing with the advancement of technology, our brains are preparing ourselves for the real world without even knowing it. In whatever career you may choose, you will have to balance many tasks at once, no matter what job you have. If you work at the drive thru you have to multitask all of the orders that are coming through at once. If you are an owner of a multi-million dollar company than you have to multitask all of the problems you have to face when running a business. In our era of technology and modernization “the environment demands the capacity to do more than one thing at a time, divide one’s attention, and juggle competing, often conflicting interests” (Restak 33) That is why it is important for our brain to develop this new ability of multitasking through petty objectives like texting so we can learn how to apply multitasking to bigger ordeals like a career.

Despite the benefit of our minds learning to multitask, there are scenarios when this new talent can be harmful, especially for adolescents and young adults. The new generation of teens and younger adults are the ones who use the new technological advancements the most. Instead of teens going outside during