When strolling across Guilford campus on a typical sunny day, you would find students hastily walking to class while listening to iPods, sitting on the lawn typing away on laptops, and lounging outside of Founders chattering on cell phones. Technology has assimilated so much into our culture that it has assumed an omnipresence in our society. While technological advances certainly benefit humankind, there are also certain consequences. The prevalence of technology may not just affect how we operate our daily lives but also how our brain develops.

The Institute for the Future of the Mind, directed by neurologist Susan Greenfield, researches technologies of the twenty-first century and the issues they bring to humanity. The Institute is fairly new and has not yet conducted extensive research but it proposes to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neurodevelopment, particularly in children.

“The human brain is exquisitely sensitive to any and every event,” Greenfield said in a speech at the House of Lords. “We cannot complacently take it as an article of faith that will remain inviolate.”

Greenfield recently conducted a survey of eight to 18 year olds that found that they spend an average of six and a half hours a day using electronic media. Children growing up in the present electronic age spend hours watching television, playing videogames, and surfing the Internet daily .

“Our behavior is not only a product of genes and brain cells but our society by which we live,” said Debra Taylor, part-time lecturer in psychology. “Technology-based activities now replace the traditional ways of play in which skills would be developed.”

Greenfield concludes that children who spend approximately six hours every day in these virtual worlds are different from those from the previous generation, or those born before 1970. She classifies the prior generation as the “generation of the book,” meaning their brains developed in a completely different way than those of children today.

“A certain stage of childhood is critical for development,” said Taylor. “It is important that children of a certain age are utilizing certain skills.”

Activities like reading involve following a story through a series of interrelated logical steps, which utilizes logic, memory, linear thinking, and creativity. These skills are typically not required when engaging in technology-based play.

Many scientists attribute the emergence of technology and its iconic, fast-paced nature as playing a role in the increase of psychological disorders like ADD.

“Children as young as five years old are now being medicated for psychological disorders like depression and ADD,” said junior Psychology major Katherine Rossini. “Instead of prescribing these children drugs, we should look more at what is actually causing these problems.”

Many activities, such as video-gaming, that do not necessitate creative skills may invoke neuroplasticity, the process of the human brain changing its structures in order to better cope with environment. When a part of the brain is not used, another section may take over its functions.

“If you don’t use it, you lose it,” said Taylor. “Potentially the skills that are not being learned by children in the modern era could be lost.”

Researchers David Hubel and Tortsten Wiesel conducted an experiment in which they prohibited kittens from using one of their eyes. As a result, these kittens did not develop the areas of the brain which receive input from both eyes. This demonstrates how the brain cultivates during childhood based on what parts of the brain are exercised.

“We should not sleepwalk into a world that is directed by modern technologies,” Greenfield wrote on the Institute website. “Rather, we should establish which skills we want our young people to develop, then use technology to help construct the richest lives possible.