reading

NYT reports today on a hiking trip five neuroscientists recently made in which, beyond the reach of cellphones, Blackberries and wireless Internet, they informally studied the role being constantly plugged into digital information networks (e-mails, cellphones, computers) has on our brains. Excerpt:

The men drink Tecate beer and talk about the brain. They are thinking about a seminal study from the University of Michigan that showed people can better learn after walking in the woods than after walking a busy street.

The study indicates that learning centers in the brain become taxed when asked to process information, even during the relatively passive experience of taking in an urban setting. By extension, some scientists believe heavy multitasking fatigues the brain, draining it of the ability to focus.

Mr. Strayer, the trip leader, argues that nature can refresh the brain. “Our senses change. They kind of recalibrate — you notice sounds, like these crickets chirping; you hear the river, the sounds, the smells, you become more connected to the physical environment, the earth, rather than the artificial environment.”

“That’s why they call it vacation. It’s restorative,” Mr. Braver says. He wonders if there’s any science behind the nature idea. “Part of being a good scientist is being skeptical.”

Mr. Braver accepts the Michigan research but wants to understand precisely what happens inside the brain. And he wonders: Why don’t brains adapt to the heavy stimulation, turning us into ever-stronger multitaskers?

“Right,” says Mr. Kramer, the skeptic. “Why wouldn’t the circuits be exercised, in a sense, and we’d get stronger?”  

All of this resonates deeply with me. On my previous blog, I wrote about the time in the mid-1990s when I spent three months living in the country, out of the reach of all media except for public radio (the local station only had two daily newscasts, so it was mostly classical music all the livelong day). I went stir-crazy the first two or three weeks, and couldn't focus on anything because of constant craving for hits of information. But I detoxed eventually, and fell into the natural rhythms of pre-electronic life. I woke up when the sun rose, and went to sleep not long after it went down. It was amazing to me how my head cleared, and how focus was restored to me. Of course it all went away when I returned to the city, but I have longed since then to return to that state. I can't, of course, given the job I have to do -- but I could do a lot better at it, even within the constraints of the plugged-in way I have to live (and that most of us have to live).

I have noticed more recently that when I am regularly devoted to meditative prayer, on a sustained basis (e.g., 30 unbroken minutes per day), I am a different person. I am calmer and more focused, noticeably so (or so says my wife). The Mind & Life Institute is a Buddhist foundation that explores through science the demonstrable benefits of meditation; I was recently going through some of their material, which includes neuroscience research into the plasticity of the brain, and how meditation really does change the structure of the brain in beneficial ways. I find this easy to believe. And I find myself all but powerless before the compulsion to stay plugged in, checking e-mail. There I was on the beach recently, not watching the surf and my kids playing in it, but refreshing my e-mail stream (I left the iPhone deliberately in the car the next day). You should see me when I get out of my car in the parking garage at work, checking e-mail all the way up to the office on the fifth floor, even on the elevator; can't stand even a minute of stillness. I. Hate. This. But there's something narcotic about it.

I wonder how early it starts, and how genetic it is. In my household, two of my children are like me, walking around with a book or a magazine in hand all the time. It's quite ridiculous at times: we'll be standing there trying to brush our teeth, our head in a book, or walking across the living room not watching where we're going because we're reading. Matthew and I both get panicky when there's nothing to read. If I thought I had to spend a weekend by myself at a beautiful resort, but without reading material handy, I would rather stay home. Seriously. The idea of a plane ride without reading material is panic-inducing. Why is that? Julie, my wife, is a serious reader too, but she's got a far more balanced approach to it. And, unsurprisingly, she finishes every book she starts. I rarely do.

Curiously, Matthew and I both have to some degree a condition called sensory processing disorder -- his is more intense than mine is -- and I'm starting to see signs that my other obsessive reader, Nora, may have this condition too.  I didn't realize that I had it until we started trying to make sense of what was going on with Matthew a few years ago, re: this strange series of behavioral symptoms, including an inability to eat meat or most other foods, as well as a hypersensitivity to sound, frequent meltdowns, etc. As I learned about SPD, a number of things about my own reactions and behavior became clear to me. For example, I often have trouble being in shopping malls for a long time. At a certain point, I become slightly disoriented and logy. I always thought I just got tired while shopping, but once, after we started learning about SPD in the course of discovering what was going on with Matthew, I got all stumbly-wumbly after an hour and a half in IKEA, and told Julie we needed to go. She gave me a strong, sustained hug -- not an affectionate embrace, but a powerful squeeze -- then asked me how I felt. It was remarkable how clear things seemed, instantly -- the difference between me getting out of bed in the morning, and me after my first cup of coffee. She explained that the sudden pressure of an embrace refocused my sensory input, which had become overtaxed by too much stimulation.

In the years since then, I've noticed that I find it more and more difficult to take in a lot of outside stimulation without becoming worn down. It's good to get that learned about oneself, and it's especially good to know it about one's children. In Matthew's case, we've had to be vigilant that he doesn't overstimulate himself, because that often leads to confusion and even a meltdown. Before finding out about SPD, we suspected that this was him being dramatic, or even manipulative. But now we know that that's how his brain is, and it's that way because that's how his father's brain is, though not to the same extent. I find Matthew's strong aversion to all but a bland diet so sad, but I get it; I am so finely attuned to smell that there are some unpleasant odors that most people can encounter without a problem, but which make me gag uncontrollably.

But here's what I wonder: is there a connection between the deep craving my two SPD (or SPD-ish; we have had no diagnosis in Nora, who's only three) children and their SPD father have for information input via text, and our SPD tendencies? Is there a difference, physiologically speaking, between brain stimulation coming in from reading text, and coming in from "reading" the broader world? I notice that I don't have a restful mind at all, even though I know I need one, and crave one. But not as much as I crave reading. If there's nobody to talk to at a meal, I have to have a book; I'd almost rather not eat if I have to eat alone, without a book. For me -- as, it seems, for two of my three children, information input via books, newspapers and magazines has been my default mode from childhood. Fish gotta swim, Rod gotta read. Is there a neuroscientific explanation for this?

I should point out that I didn't sit there in that country house alone with my thoughts. I had plenty of books to read. What I didn't have was a computer, or a television. I regained the ability to engage in sustained, focused reading. Which I no longer have, but which my wife, despite having to care for three children during the day, does have -- no doubt because she doesn't feel compelled to check her e-mail obsessively, or skitter across the Interwebs seeing what's going on on various blogs and news sites. It's the compulsion that interests me, and the potential connection to the way my brain is wired. I would say this compulsion is a vice, and it's certainly something I'd like to overcome. But to what extent is it organic to my brain, and to the brains of perhaps two of my children? And how plastic are our brains, by which I mean, how easy is it to overcome through something like the practice of meditative prayer? I think it is amenable to this kind of "treatment," because I've seen it work with me before. But boy, is it ever hard work, just sitting still and finding a place of tranquility. A drunkard may look at the bottle of whiskey and find his mind filled with compulsive thoughts; I look at the new issue of The Atlantic, say, and think: Must consume! Seriously, the other day we were all standing in the living room in front of the icons doing family prayers, which takes only a few minutes, and I noticed Matthew slyly trying to read the back cover of the new Atlantic, sitting on the coffee table. I got cheesed off at him, but my next thought was, There, despite the grace of God, go I.