The Modern Hunter Gatherer

Thesis: At first, as hunters and gatherers, our minds were scattered and easily distracted as a means of survival. Our minds were easily distracted at that time because it was a method of survival and allowed to us to easily pick up the slightest movements that hinted at prey or possible danger. However, as society developed and literacy expanded, our minds changed from being reactive stimuli orientated (easily distracted) to being more top-down focus oriented (deep attention). This has changed in recent years with the rise of the Internet and increased connectivity through mediums such as social networking and texting. This social media has returned us to a more distracted state of mind but because it is no longer a necessary survival method, this state of mind is not advantageous now that society has become more top-down focus oriented.

Supporting Claims:

1) Anthony Wagner has supported the idea that social media has changed us by almost rewiring our brains. He argues that “each time we get a new message or notification,our dopamine reward circuits probably get activated, since the desire for social connection is so wired into us.” Therefore, the notification system that keeps us constantly connected has led to a rewiring of our brains so that now, we are easily distracted by notifications.

2) Nicholas Carr talks about social media and how it easily distracts us on pages 133-138 of his book The Shallows. He asserts that, depending on how many social mediums we use and how often we check them, each notification is a distraction. This is because they are “an intrusion on our thoughts” and “another bit of information that takes up precious space in our working memory”. Distractions like these interrupt the natural and deep thought process that was once advocated so highly and often makes us “tense and anxious”, a trait that might have once been useful for the ancient hunter who was constantly wary of danger, but one that only hurts the casual Internet user.

3) Cate Kennedy writes how during a writers conference on weekend, when there was no wireless internet, the assembled writers freaked out and began to become frantic. The writers could not survive without their Twitters, FaceBooks, or emails and seemed to be having withdrawal symptoms. Writing requires top-down focus to concentrate and develop an idea fully so this example shows how even writers nowadays have trouble functioning without social media and its distractions.

For my research proposal, I have decided to find out how and why social networking and other forms of technology (such as texting) have forcefully returned us to a distracted state of mind (such as when we were hunter gatherers) and whether or not this change is a positive one. This topic idea came mostly from one sentence in Carr’s book when he said that “we are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest.” This sentence reminded me of how we now resemble behaviors of our ancient ancestors. A slight movement or flash in the corner of our eye and immediately we prepare ourselves and pounce, whether it be prey (in ancient times) or the latest FaceBook update. I think this will be a good topic because it researches one of Carr’s biggest themes of our “distracted states” and hones in on it on a smaller scale. The rise of social networking has become addicting for many and was integral to the rise of the Internet so I am very excited to see how using these sites and even texting has changed our minds.

For now, I imagine my thesis to be that though we are returning to a distracted state of mind similar to our ancestors, it is not a positive change because hunters and gatherers maintained a distracted state out of necessity, while we maintain it due to entertainment and want. Long ago, people were mainly concerned with feeding themselves but with the evolution of society and deeper learning, this state of mind was unnecessary anymore and intelligence and the concentrated state of mind became more advocated. Now, in an increasingly technological world, we are returning to a distracted state of mind, aided by these constant connections and notifications, while we still need to concentrate deeply on many aspects of life.

Over the course of my paper, I think that I will cover a brief history of the rise of technology in relation to how it has connected people from the telephone to the beeper to social networking. I will then show how the idea of “notifications” and constant alerts has spread our attention far and wide, especially with the uprise of the smartphone. Hopefully, I will be able to show that while our minds are similar to hunters and gatherers, the society we live in has  changed drastically and so the change is not a positive one.

I chose this picture for my topic because it shows, albeit in a funny way, the evolution fo reading through the ages as Carr describes. At first reading consisted of simple messages or pictures on stone and then eventually developed into long and more complicated prose through literature and texts. Now, however, the face of reading has changed with the internet with shorter bursts of information taking precedence over longer and more traditional written works.

Quote #1: “The plasticity…Nature predominates.” p. 28

Quote #2: “The placing…difficult texts.’ ” p. 63

In the first quote I chose, Carr talks about how there are two views when it comes to how our brains, or rather, how the synapses in our brains truly work. Empiricists believe that the mind is a “blank slate” and that experiences determine what we know while rationalists believe that our minds come pre-equipped with tendencies of how to look at te world around us. These two views are the basis of the nature vs. nurture debate. When I read this I was conflicted about which view I tended towards because I had already thought about this topic many times before without knowing the proper scientific name for it. The best way that I thought about this debate was how different students behaved in school. Each person I knew always had a certain subject that they were good at because they were naturally good at it, they had an excellent teacher, or both. Students who were naturally good at subjects seemed to prove the rationalists view that our mind comes pre equipped about how to deal with the outside world. They were able to study and understand subjects much easier than others, almost as if their brains were hardwired to do so. Conversely, many students I knew were almost like sponges, doing well in their respective subjects because they were able to soak in information and record it in their brains. These people were filling the “blank slates” of their minds. In my opinion, our minds tend to be a mix of both views, as Carr later shows, because in some ways, actions are instinctual or seem easier than others while others we must learn from scratch.

In the second quote from The Shallows, Carr highlights how putting spaces between words helped make reading easier. As reading became easier, our brains adjusted to recognizing and interpreting letters and symbols as it developed regions of the brain dedicated to processing this new information. This allowed for people to switch from merely reading and deciphering information form reading to actually thinking about what they read, leading to the idea of “deep reading” becoming possible. When I first read this passage, I was shocked that the first examples of written work did not contain spaces between words and I kept picturing examples where mistakes would be made. I compared my own history of reading fro kindergarten where I learned the alphabet and struggled with words like “cat” to today when I could read whole paragraphs and understand them almost instantly. Then I thought about articles we had read in the beginning of the semester and how our minds are slowly turning away from the “deep reading” era and more into short bursts of information. The best example of this in my life is how I often find myself reading a book intently and my mind wanders until I realize that I do not remember what I have read. Conversely, I can most likely tell you the top 5 tweets I have read in the past week. Just as our brain developed areas to read and understand long pieces of information, it now has developed synapses that can track multiple sources of information at once, so that “deep reading” may soon be a thing of the past.