Five neu­ro­sci­en­tists trav­elled into deep­est Glen Canyon, Utah, to con­tem­plate how tech­nol­ogy has changes their behav­iour. Some were scep­tics and some were believ­ers, and by tak­ing this forced break from their com­put­ers and gad­gets (there was no mobile phone recep­tion or power) they were deter­mined to find out whether or not mod­ern tech­nol­ogy inhibits their “deep thought” and can cause them anx­i­ety.

This bit of self-experimentation and cog­ni­tive reflec­tion is a bit too light on the con­clu­sions for my lik­ing, but this arti­cle, from The New York Times’ Unplugged series that exam­ines “how a del­uge of data can affect the way peo­ple think and behave”, does have this that’s worth think­ing about:

[By day three] the group has become more reflec­tive, qui­eter, more focused on the sur­round­ings. […]
The oth­ers are more relaxed too. Mr. Braver decides against cof­fee, bypass­ing his usual rit­ual. The next day, he neglects to put on his watch, though he cau­tions against read­ing too much into it. […]

Mr. Strayer, the believer, says the trav­el­ers are expe­ri­enc­ing a stage of relax­ation he calls “third-day syn­drome.” Its symp­toms may be unsur­pris­ing. But even the more skep­ti­cal of the sci­en­tists say some­thing is hap­pen­ing to their brains that rein­forces their sci­en­tific dis­cus­sions — some­thing that could be impor­tant to help­ing peo­ple cope in a world of con­stant elec­tronic noise.

“If we can find out that peo­ple are walk­ing around fatigued and not real­iz­ing their cog­ni­tive poten­tial,” Mr. Braver says, then pauses and adds: “What can we do to get us back to our full potential?”

“Third-day syn­drome”. I like that, and it rings true. Week­ends away to nearby cities don’t do it for me in terms of dis­en­gag­ing and allow­ing free thought; I need at least four days.

One more com­ment that was a bit too close for comfort:

Tech­nol­ogy has rede­fined the notion of what is “urgent.” How soon do peo­ple need to get infor­ma­tion and respond to it? The believ­ers in the group say the drum­beat of incom­ing data has cre­ated a false sense of urgency that can affect people’s abil­ity to focus.