Digital Overload: Your Brain On Gadgets

AUTHOR: Radio Host: Terry Gross, Interviewee: New York Times technology journalist Matt Richtel

PUBLICATION NAME: NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross (podcast) 

PUBLICATION DATE: August 24, 2010

SUMMARY: 

Because I'm the teacher, I cut and pasted the NPR summary.  You will not do this.

"The average person today consumes almost three times as much information as what the typical person consumed in 1960, according to research at the University of California, San Diego.
And The New York Times reports that the average computer user checks 40 websites a day and can switch programs 36 times an hour.
"It's an onslaught of information coming in today," says Times technology journalist Matt Richtel. "At one time a screen meant maybe something in your living room. But now it's something in your pocket so it goes everywhere — it can be behind the wheel, it can be at the dinner table, it can be in the bathroom. We see it everywhere today."
Richtel has spent the past several months researching the toll technology and "information juggling" are taking on our lives — and our brains. His series "Your Brain On Computers" describes how multitasking on computers and digital gadgets affects the way people process information — and how quickly they can then become distracted."

LINKS TO STUDY:  No studies, but the author's series at the New York Times can be found here.

ARTICLE:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129384107

SUBMITTED BY: Cummins