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Neurological and Cultural Underpinnings of Being Plugged

Posted on September 8, 2009
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First, an apology to my readers. I’ve let trivia overwhelm me. That combined with a few other things have prevented me from updating my blog more promptly. I hope to rectify the situation this week.

Part 1: The Hardware (or Biology)

A day or two after I posted my article on the madness of speed in the modern culture, I read an entry on Frontal Cortex that shed some more neurological light on our pathological condition. I wrote a little about this in my earlier article, but this hopefully provides a more complete picture. I was indulging in speculation then, but it looks like I wasn’t that far off.

Back in 1954, a psychologist at McGill University in Canada, James Olds, and his team accidentally discovered that if a probe is inserted into the lateral hypothalamus of a rat and the rat was allowed to stimulate its own probe, the rat would stimulate itself till it collapsed. This was hailed as the discovery of the brain’s pleasure center. But neuroscientists were unhappy with this term. They found that far from producing pleasure, people who were stimulated in this area were more crazed than happy. Two researchers, Jaak Panskepp and Kent Berridge, independently concluded that this area was more concerned with seeking or searching than pleasure. Berridge concludes that mammals have two separate systems, one for seeking and the other for liking, which is the brain’s real pleasure center. Emily Yoffe, the author of the Slate article that inspired the entry on Frontal Cortex, writes:

“But our brains are designed to more easily be stimulated than satisfied. “The brain seems to be more stingy with mechanisms for pleasure than for desire,” Berridge has said. This makes evolutionary sense. Creatures that lack motivation, that find it easy to slip into oblivious rapture, are likely to lead short (if happy) lives. So nature imbued us with an unquenchable drive to discover, to explore. Stanford University neuroscientist Brian Knutson has been putting people in MRI scanners and looking inside their brains as they play an investing game. He has consistently found that the pictures inside our skulls show that the possibility of a payoff is much more stimulating than actually getting one.”

Dopamine, the well known neurotransmitter associated with the euphoric feeling and consistently tagged as being the reward drug, apparently has more effect in motivating us than in satisfying us. Rats that had their dopamine producing neurons destroyed, starved to death even when the food was right in front of them because they had lost the desire to reach for it. Berridge says that dopamine does not have satiety built into it. Rats who had dopamine flood their brains were quicker in navigating a maze to reach food than ordinary rats, but they were not any more satisfied than the ordinary rats once they found the food. Dopamine is also thought to be responsible for maintaining an internal sense of time. So, when an hour has gone by whilst surfing the web, you have dopamine to thank again. The neurotransmitter not only drives the seeking system in our brains, it also makes us lose time as we constantly stimulate ourselves following one hyperlink after the next. Novelty fuels dopamine and the next email has all the potential of being novel (it just might be the response from that gorgeous girl from the cafe agreeing to meet for dinner). Berridge says that like Pavlov’s dogs, we salivate at the ding announcing new mail.

Jonah Lehrer adds an interesting twist to this. This endless desire for curiosity doesn’t make us want to read Feynman’s Lectures on Physics or learn a new language or a skill. He says: “..we don’t treat all information equally. My salient fact is your irrelevant bit; your necessary detail is my triviality. Here’s the paradox of curiosity: I only want to know more about that which I already know about.” So, there we have it, a neurological explanation for why we develop a tic if we’re unplugged even for an instant.

Part 2: Software (or Culture)

Driving back from the library yesterday, I heard a brief segment from a program called “The Cambridge Forum” on NPR. The speaker was Carl Honore, a leading evangelist of the so called “Slow Movement”. He said something that I thought provided the cultural impetus for our behavior. Western culture (and thereby much of modern culture just about everywhere) has always thought of time as linear, of a line moving towards progress and betterment. Economics is a fundamental bedrock of modern culture. Everything we do, the way we want to be, who we want to be, is driven in part by a model of wanting more, of the philosophy that as homo economicus ‘more is better, greed is good’ (as quoted memorably by Gordon Gekko, the Michael Douglas character in the movie Wall Street). With time being also a scarce quantity (limited by our lifetime), and the desire to make progress, we squeeze more and more into a given unit of time.

Carl Honore writes in his blog:
“…is unplugging now the ultimate luxury?

Of course, being online can be wonderful. We are hardwired to be curious and to connect and communicate. The problem is that in a world of limitless information and constant access to other people, we often don’t know when to stop.

Being “always on” is exhausting and superficial. It erodes our producitivity. It locks us into what one Microsoft research called a state of “continuous partial attention.”

Continuous partial attention. I found that a very apt description of how I find my state of mind, many times. The days I throw caution to the wind and just be completely with Maya, I feel invigorated. Her sense of wonder, her endless fascination with what we dismiss as ordinary, her complete lack of urgency (except when she’s hungry) and purposelessness make it much more refreshing if I don’t let trivia (sometimes work is trivia too) put me in a constant state of partial attention.

I ran into the slow movement via a book about Slow Food, the activity that unleashed the slow movement. I had nodded off reading the book (or so I remember) and didn’t pay any further attention to it. By visiting Carl Honore’s site and other sites associated with the Slow Movement, I see interesting insights and practices that maybe of benefit in helping fix this drug, the accelerating, unyielding desire for more.

“There is more to life than merely increasing its speed” – Mahatma Gandhi

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The Changed Geography Of Childhood

Posted on July 10, 2009
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Writing the entry on Maya’s romps in the park, I pondered again about the nature of childhood of Maya’s generation. Shanthala often reminisces of her carefree childhood when home was a revolving door from school to playground. I hear others speak similarly of their childhood, people growing up in countries far flung from India, countries like Spain, Italy and even the US.

My father likes to say that he is quite modern in his outlook. In some ways, he’s probably ahead of his time. Unlike my peers, I spent most of my childhood alone, reading or playing by myself. We lived inside textile mill compounds, sometimes the only family. Even if there were other families living in the company quarters, other kids would not play as easily with me either because my father was the head honcho or because they were not my age. My time with my friends was controled by my parents to once a month outings at their place or ours usually for a few hours only. Similarly, my activities outside of school with peers were completely governed by my parents.

Left to my own devices, I hardly indulged in any form of physical activity, prefering instead to slouch in a corner with my books. Over time, I became quite fat, acquiring that brahmin belly. A friend’s mother would often joke that my belly entered their house well before I did. Even at school, I prefered to cook up some excuse to get out of the P.T (physical training) class.

My childhood fits perfectly with how most kids are raised these days in the US. They are chaperoned from activity to activity, are rarely allowed any time without adult supervision and lead cloistered lives. A friend once commented that in this country, parents are more chaffeurs than parents, spending entire weekends driving kids from activity or birthday party to another. Shanthala often says how much she hates orchestrating time for kids to play with each other, those play dates. It is unusual to see kids playing out in the streets by themselves.

This article in Boston Globe, published in January 2008, is one of many articles that I found on the net when I searched for any data on how little kids played outside these days. Here is an excerpt from the article:

‘Roger Hart knows this wistful territory better than anyone. In 1972, as a graduate student at Clark University, the young researcher set out to understand the geography of childhood. He journeyed to a not-so-exotic locale — a village in Vermont — and spent two years tracking the movements of a species that, remarkably, had never been closely studied in its natural environment: the human child. (At the time, says Hart, “we knew more about the ecology of baboons than the ecology of children.”) Running, playing, and digging in the dirt with packs of kids from 5 to 12 years old, he discovered that virtually all of them had outdoor places they considered their own, where they went to hide, reflect, or commune with nature.

When Hart returned to the same town two years ago, to repeat his research and learn how childhood has changed in 36 years, he discovered a universe transformed in a single generation. The children had moved indoors, and the intricate, outdoor play-world they had once invented and inhabited on their own was gone. In the wake of the shift he found nagging questions about its effects on children’s creativity and independence. Now 60 and a professor of environmental psychology at the City University of New York, Hart is working on a film and a book about his research, tentatively titled “Childhood Revisited.”‘

The article goes on to say how his study indicates that kids these days have a hard time spending time on their own, inventing activities to keep themselves occupied. I remembered how a friend’s child, raised in the US, had a hard time finding something to do on his own in the absence of a computer or TV. He kept saying how bored he was. An article in LA Times about this subject (from May 2008) states a University of Michigan finding that between 1981 and 1997, “3- to 5-year-olds lost an average of 501 minutes of unstructured playtime each week; 6- to 8-year-olds lost an average of 228 minutes. (On the other hand, kids now do more organized activities and have more homework, the lucky devils!) And forget about walking to school alone. Today’s kids don’t walk much at all (adding to the childhood obesity problem).”

There is no dearth of articles that bemoan this new geography of childhood, of time with computers and TV and almost complete lack of unstructured, adult-free time. For example, this article talks about a national movement called “No Child Left Inside”, inspired by a book called “Last Child In The Woods” by a Richard Louv. An excerpt from the article:

‘Louv tagged the term “nature deficit disorder,” the physical, psychological and emotional conditions that result from society’s increasing alienation from nature. Obesity, stress and attention disorders are just some of its manifestations. Louv’s book has triggered a national conversation about the issue, even sparked federal legislation to help fund local programs and the development of school curriculums. It is the springboard for groups all over the country who are working to get youth outside more.’

The article speaks of how the latest edition of Oxford Junior Dictionary cut out terms such as: beaver, dandelion, heron, magpie, clover, otter and others, and substituted Blackberry, blog, MP3 player, voicemail and broadband. It is quite well-known that kids today can identify brands far better than they can identify flora and fauna.

Other articles speak of how kids in day care spend less time outdoors compared to kids not in day care. The causes vary from the personality of the day care supervisors (if they don’t enjoy being outside, they tend to not take kids outside) to the nature of groups (if one kid comes ill-prepared to be outside, such as not having the appropriate clothing, the entire class doesn’t go).

Why this massive shift in a single generation ? The factors are many. Fear is a large factor. Most parents are terrified that their kids will be abducted and/or killed by homicidal maniacs or pedophiles if left to play by themselves. Litigation is another factor according to this article published in 2006. The structure of our lives is another factor. We live in suburbs, in communities where neighbors hardly know each other and so parents prefer to drive their kids to their friends’ houses or to common meeting points. Another issue is the increased urge to enroll kids into every possible activity, to not deprive the kids of possible benefits and to provide a competitive edge. It is also far easier to plonk kids in front of the TV or the computer compared to taking them out to a park.

Many articles speak of the effects of this retreat from the outside and the lack of unsupervised time. They speak of increased risk of obesity (physical activity is one factor, not the only factor of course), diabetes and heart diseases. Some articles also highlight that play and unsupervised time itself is critical. A representative for the American Academy of Pediatrics’, Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg testified to Congress in 2006, “Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles. … Play helps children develop new competencies … and the resiliency they will need to face future challenges.” But here’s the catch: Those benefits aren’t realized when some helpful adult is hovering over kids the whole time.” Then there is the possibility that all this alienation from nature will make kids immune to issues such as loss of biodiversity and open spaces.

People who look at me today may ask, “Well, it doesn’t seem that your physical inactivity during your childhood has prevented you from becoming physically fit and healthy in your later ages. So why all this hoopla ? Let’s give the parents a break”. What they don’t see is the struggle I grow through every time I have to lace up for a run. I have to fight with myself from giving all those excuses to not run each time. And as some of the articles state, the issue is more than just health. And I don’t think I’m just blaming parents or the modern life. In our drive to acquire the trappings of a successful life, I fear that we’re forgetting how to live, we’re withdrawing or opting out of making decisions that may lead to greater benefits systemically, for us and our future generations.

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What’s In A Name ?

Posted on January 14, 2008
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I was on the phone with an old friend from India last week. One comment from him spawned a reflection on naming, parenting, and being a stranger in a strange land.

“Have you picked a name for your daughter yet ?”, he asked.

“Yes, I have picked one as has Shanthala and we’re fighting over it”, I replied.

“Are you choosing only Indian names or are you looking at American ones too ?”

“Of course, only Indian”, I said, recoiling with horror, “Why would I want to reject that part of India ?”

“Well, I didn’t see it as a rejection of India as much as I saw it as an acceptance of names from other cultures”, he said.

“No, no, no. We’re only picking Indian names”.

Why had I reacted so vehemently, I wondered later on. One aspect was that he specifically selected American as the culture to pick a name from. Of course, we live in the US of A for crying out loud, not in France or Germany. But American, being synonymous with white, is also synonymous with power for me. Among Indians, there are a group of people who strive desperately to be like Americans. They change their names to suit American tastes even if they’re simple names such as Ramesh or Santosh, they decorate their homes in a distinctly American style, they celebrate Christmas but not Indian festivals, they attempt a different accent, one that they hope is more American, but only sounds artificial. Having desperately aspired to leave India for a foreign shore, why not leave behind the Indian culture along with the dust and the crowds, I guess is their thinking. Even living in India, many imitate America, be it in the music, the brands, the food and the drinks, or the movies and the TV shows. Some are able to absorb both cultures and come up with a nice amalgam, a Creole gumbo, that is as tasty as it is fresh, but most just copy. I grew up in a household where the west was the best. Anything Indian was second class, whether it be an Indian manufactured tape recorder or yoga. I recoiled from being considered such a person by an old friend, recoiling from the legacy of my family.

Now and then, I had pondered about the ways in which my sense of self was tied up with where I was from. A glance in the mirror was sufficient to indicate my Indianness. And if I scratched beneath the surface, food preferences, languages I speak and the way I speak them, religions whose mythologies I’m comfortable in, stories I know, aromas and stinks that smell of home all revealed themselves to be strongly influenced by where I’m from. I hadn’t realized name was one such artifact.

What’s in a name ? Why do we spend so much time agonizing over it ? A name in a few short sounds symbolises everything about an individual. Her history, her genesis, her genealogy, her neuroses, her philosophy, her likes, her dislikes. In the movie, Last Tango in Paris, the character played by Marlon Brando refuses to give his name or ask the name of the character played by Maria Schneider. When she asks why he doesn’t want to know her name or anything else about her, he says: “We’re gonna forget…everything that we knew. Every… All the people,… all that we do,… wherever we live. We’re going to forget that. everything, everything”. A name can be a burden. I’ve wondered if I leave everything and everyone I know, go live in Chile and give myself a new name, will I change who I am ?

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith.” Many people we’ve come across aspire to give Fate an easier time, to pick a name that speaks of greatness to come, to jumpstart the race that many parents consider life to be. In the bestseller, Freakonomics, the authors narrate the story of a parent in New York in 1958 who named one of his sons, Winner and one of them Loser. If names were to have any influence on the future, Loser must’ve had a disastrous life and Winner must have had an enviable one. Instead, it turned out to be the exact opposite. Loser ended up being a police sergeant while Winner has had a career of crime with more than 30 arrests. Among Indians, this attitude manifests in the extraordinary lengths parents go to pick a unique name, a name that raises eyebrows and causes people to squint due to the unfamiliarity of the name, of the name that even sounds non-Indian. In the US, the name game is played a little differently. There are distinctly black names and distinctly white names. In Freakonomics, the authors narrate the story of how black names have become increasingly uncommon among whites and vice-versa. In 1970, a black girl in California was given a name that was twice as common among blacks as it was among whites in California. Today, 40% of girls born in a black family in California are given names that are not given to any girl born in a white family. The book concludes that while names are an indicator of the future, they are not the cause, because: “… the kind of parents who name their son Jake don’t tend to live in the same neighborhoods or share economic circumstances with the kind of parents who name their son DeShawn.”

Indians are well regarded in the US and there is little reason for an Indian to either reject an Indian name or hide behind it. Our rejection of things Indian comes from our colonial past and our racial prejudice, I think. In India, dark skin is not favorably looked upon while white or fair skin is revered. A friend narrated a story that illustrated this double prejudice rather well. A friend of his was visiting India for the first time after his daughter was born. One of his aunts took one look at the child and said despondently, “She is as dark as you both are. All this time in America hasn’t helped”.

Children born to immigrants have a confused sense of identity. Among Indians, they’re called ABCD, American Born Confused Desi. Is the attempt to give a Christian name an attempt to prevent this confusion ? But naming your child with a Christian name is not without its share of headaches. Another friend mentioned about a classmate of hers, a Christian from Kerala called Anna, who had to explain each time she introduced herself that Anna was her real name as she was a Christian from India, that it wasn’t short for anything. If we ever return to India, a non-Indian sounding name will only attract the kinds of problems Anna had here. Even over here, if we really liked a non-Indian name and named our child that, I fear we’ll be judged by the likes of myself as striving to be a lily white American. Looked at another way, we rejected many names because they’re so hard for non-Indians to pronounce correctly. For example, we rejected Raakhee because it’s pronounced Rocky by Americans. Sigh. No wonder Marshall McLuhan said: “The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers”.

Shanthala has picked Aditi and I have picked Maya. Aditi or Maya, Raakhee or Rocky, beautiful child, you’ll rock our world.

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