Letters Remain

Tag: attention

  • Retreating to Study Technology’s Cognitive Impact

    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…

  • How to Internet: Reading

    One of the first problems you’re likely to run across as someone who’s now finding lots of interesting things on the internet is that you’re amassing more stuff you want to read than you’ve ever had before and it’s getting hard to track. If you’re like I was for about five years, this will likely…

  • How to Internet: Staying Current

    For the uninitiated, phrases like ā€œSubscribe to this Blogā€, ā€œRSS feedā€, and ā€œFeed Readerā€ are just so much noise. So hereā€™s a very short explanation: you use a “feed reader” to “subscribe” to a blog using its “RSS feed”. Make sense? To use a slightly more analog story, you can think of this whole thing…

  • How to Internet: Dividing Attention

    There’s a huge cornucopia of stuff on the internet, far more than even the most adept writer could hope to survey with even a full book on the topic. My goal is not to tell you what to pay attention to. Rather, I hope to give you some interesting places to start and some guideline…

  • ‘Bit Culture’ and the Benefits of Distraction

    The information consumption habits of many in the younger generations–one feature of the ‘Internet information culture’–has many merits, despite its many detractors. So says Ban Casnocha in an article for The American that acts as both a review of Tyler Cowen’s Create Your Own Economy and a fairly positive and comprehensive overview of the “bit…

  • Nature Improves Attention

    When studying complex tasks, taking a moment away from the problem is a proven way to refocus one’s thoughts. How different surroundings affect this “attention restoration” has now been studied and it has been discovered that the more complex a problem, the more a natural (non-urban) scene benefits our focus and study–whether this natural scene…

  • The Neuroscience of Driving

    Elderly drivers are the most dangerous on the road, we are often led to believe thanks to the news highlighting accidents involving the aged. This is not necessarily the case, research is showing, but it’s partly true due to the decline of many cognitive functions. In a comprehensive article looking at the neuroscience of driving,…