Gadgets aren’t just driving us to distraction ”” they’re the driving force behind how our brains are evolving, and not always for the better.
New York Times reporter Matt Richtel, the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for his series on distracted driving, is now working on a project that chronicles the way text messages and computers are altering our brains. Richtel will bring his provocative views on the gadget era as the keynote speaker at the Roger Tatarian Symposium at Fresno State on Friday from 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in the Satellite Student Union. A panel discussion moderated by journalist and author Mark Arax will feature Richtel and media effects expert Tamyra Pierce and Fresno State’s director of social media relations Katie Johnson.
Richtel’s research details just how our addiction to screens ”” both big and small ”” is shaping not just how we think, but how it’s morphing the very shape of our brains.
“This information is especially pertinent to college students,” Richtel said. “Students encounter internal and external pressures to stay connected.”
Richtel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning news series “Driven to Distraction” chronicles the deadly dangers of driving while talking on a cell phone or texting. Several states, including California, ended up changing laws in response to the series, making texting and talking on the phone illegal while driving.
Richtel’s stories underscore the way mobile technology has become both a blessing and a curse ”” a blessing because of the way it allows people to connect and share information, and a curse because of the way it affects the brain.
“When someone is constantly switching tasks, it changes the mind’s ability to focus,” Richtel said. “The muscles and neurologic tissue, which allow someone to focus, don’t develop as much and create a deficit in the brain’s ability to concentrate.”
Panel member Tamyra Pierce, chair of the Mass Communication and Journalism Department, has conducted extensive research on gadget-motivated behavior. Her studies on texting and driving, which are now in review at the Journal of Adolescence, add another body of evidence to the perils of distracted driving.
“My research has looked at surveys of college students that have come out the last few years,” Pierce said. “What those surveys have found is that the risk of texting and driving with the result of getting caught isn’t enough to make them stop. Are we so addicted to mobile technology that we can’t put it down long enough to drive?”
The series “Driven to Distraction,” which originated with Richtel trying to connect public sentiment about mobile technology with those gadget’s roles in everyday life, was fleshed out into 14 separate stories ranging from how the state government regulates mobile technology to the perils that pedestrians face while using a cell phone.
“I’m always looking for aspects of people’s lives and the tension certain things can create,” Richtel said. “There’s been such an outpouring of interest about it. People ask, ‘What does it mean for the rest of our lives?’”
For college students who engage in these behaviors, the risk factor is often overlooked. Many students are at an age where their brains are still growing and forming, and abuse of texting and video games can impair that growth. However, neurological research on the topic is still in its baby stages.
“Science relating to the subject is still considered very early research,” Richtel said. “In college students, the frontal lobe is still growing, which makes the mind of the college student especially vulnerable.”
The discussion, which school administrators hope will warn symposium attendees of the dangers of distracted driving, is expected to be an equal discussion between panelists and audience members.
“What audience members take away from the symposium is up to them,” Katie Johnson, Fresno State’s director of social media relations, said. “I don’t want it to be just about me talking, but I do hope that those who attend are warned about the dangers of using their mobile devices while driving.”