Digital Dementia | What Causes This Type Of Dementia Do you remember that time when was your brain the one storing information? When I was a kid, I was learning poems by heart and I had some emergency phones numbers and tasks noted in my memory. Right now, I have noticed I had become some sort of forgetter. Something I have noticed heavily impaired my memory is my abuse of the reminders app on my iPhone. I have noticed that I have a big load of thoughts always roaming into my head. I always try to write down in the reminder app what I need to do. The problem is that I often forget what I should have written down in the app. This happens within a few seconds right after I had in mind to note my thought or task I needed to do.
I got worried about this and I started, as always, to do some research. I came up with a sort of conclusion that this is what's now called digital dementia.
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What Is Digital Dementia? The term digital dementia was coined by a German psychotherapist named Manfred Spitzer, who spent his life figuring out human behaviors. I really don't care that this guy spent a lot of time studying these things. I just think that the name digital dementia is a quite good fit. Dementia is a very bad mental condition, that in most of the cases appears in humans without their will. The neuro-connections in your brain become day after day weaker until the point that it takes you very long to understand simple things.
There are many types of dementia, some of the most famous are these:
Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia with Lewy bodies. Parkinson’s disease. and many others.
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It has been proved, that relying too much on technology will increase your chances of stimulating the parts of your brain that a disease like Alzheimer does. Habituating your brain on relying on smartphones and computers is a 100% working training to dumbness and dementia. The same way you train your muscles to become stronger with calisthenics, relying on a smartphone will train your brain to become weaker. Digital dementia, is the process of habituation of your brain to rely on digital stuff like a smartphone for instance.
Some Examples That Will Increase Your Chances To Incur In Digital Dementia Here I am going to tell you what in my case, more specifically, alarmed me about this problem. I didn't know that this was real, but then I did the math and it is. If you can train your brain and muscles to be stronger you can also train them to be weaker. And here are the things that impaired the most my memory. 
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iPhone Reminders: I have at least 60-200 reminders every day. I check when are completed, and uncheck when they are not. My list goes like this: change car oil, look at the console of minimalistboy, pay the insurance and so on. Every time something comes to mind, and I can not do immediately but I need to postpone it for later, goes into my reminders app. I have noticed that if I don't write what I need to do immediately, I forget it in the next few seconds if I didn't write it down. I thought that something was wrong and discovered this. Appointments: there is no way I don't use my iPhone to remind me an appointment. If I don't see the notification the day before and 1 hour before of the event, I forget. I am relying on my calendar, meanwhile, my dad, which is a complete technology illiterate, knows a lot of phone numbers by the hearth. I have never seen him writing down when he has a meeting. He remembers all of this and never fucks up. He doesn't have any other choices because he can't use the computer or a smartphone. I can't do that, yet.
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What digital dementia does is, in other words, sabotaging your short-term memory. It is harder to impair your long-term memory but with the short term memory is more evident.
How To Perform A Digital Detox In 5 Steps. 1. Mental Training: train yourself to remember less important stuff without the need for your smartphone or computer. Slowly reduce the need of having the technology to replace your short-term memory. 2. Read Paper Stuff: If you are working on something hard. Try to print it out and read it outside, preferably in the sun. 3. No Digital When With Humans: cut off, put on plane mode. Do not use mobile phones or computers when with other people that want to interact with you. 4. Calisthenics: get your ass outside and start pulling some bars, physical activity is important. Sweating and being active will make your brain more elastic and less demented. 5. Holotropic Breathwork: practice this breathing technique. We are made of water, food, and the air we breathe. Breathing correctly and or practicing this technique will help you. Holotropic Breathing is an advanced technique of breathing. It can put it you in an altered state of consciousness that you never experience before. As a minimalist, you want to feed yourself with important things and keep your mind sharp. Being affected by digital dementia is not something smart.
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As I said before becoming a minimalist is all about reconnecting with your survivals. Becoming dumber will just kill you in the jungle. I am writing this because I am a very good observer. When I have noticed this lack of memory in me using that reminders app, I have immediately tried to find the cause and a solution to this.
Problems With The New Generations I am lucky that I can remember when I was a kid being able to remember better certain things. But if you are younger than me, it will be harder to do that, I am really worried about the new generations. I think that all of these kids growing up playing with iPads and robots can be affected by this digital revolution in a bad way. Myself is affected by the digital world in the first place. But I have a lot of willpower to say no and quit on something that I see is dangerous. We need to educate the new generations so that they will not become robots themselves.
Conclusions What I wanted to convey in this article, is the fact that as a minimalist I don't want to become dumber. What happened was that I have recognized a lack of short-term memory when using my iPhone reminders app. I did some research and figured that someone gave a name to this, and it can be called digital dementia. I then started to train my self in becoming better remembering things without relying on technology. If you are experiencing some of these symptoms also under other circumstances, and you see your mental agility being slower than in the past, the diagnosis can be what we have talked in this article. My advice is to act now and train your brain to remember things again like before, and don't rely on technology too much. You don't want to be killed in the jungle, and/or become dumb.
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If you are looking forward to more content, Bookmark this blog. Share it with your friends and spread some rumors about it. Also, make a comment, I'm curious to know what you think about this. Further Readings: You should start a blog or a website too. If you want to know why and how! Read my tutorial that will guide you on how to have a successful blog step by step: How To Start A Successful Blog Step By Step If it happens that you need to have a bank, here is the best bank you can have as a minimalist: N26 Bank | The Minimalist Mobile Bank Thanks
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