4 minute read
IT weakens our cognition” We
If we rely too much on technology, without thoroughly training its users, we give up control and with it our freedom, warns Anne-Françoise Rutkowski.
By Fenna van der Grient
Information technology, better known as IT, has many bright sides. IT connects people worldwide, disseminates information at lightning speed, and contributes to better medical care. But on the other hand, there is a dark side that is often underestimated and can cause major problems. Professor of Information Management Anne-Françoise Rutkowski studies how we can arm ourselves against this dark side and wrote the book Emotional and cognitive overload – The dark side of Information Technology with Carol Saunders of the University of Central Florida.
What is the dark side of IT? “Information technology overloads the brain. Thanks to technologies such as the Internet and smartphones, more information comes at us than our brains can handle. The effects of this can be divided into an emotional and a cognitive component, which affect each other. The emotional component includes issues such as stress and problems with work-life balance. At the same time, it appears that IT can weaken our cognitive skills, which is reflected, for example, in impaired decision-making skills. The latter, in combination with time pressure, can have disastrous consequences.”
What kind of disastrous consequences? “In the cockpit of an airplane, good decision-making skills are essential. We have published about crashes of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. Boeing assumed that, on average, the pilots only need four seconds to decide upon a course of action, even if the source of the problem is not completely clear. Following the crashes of the 737 MAX, Boeing now acknowledges that pilots need about ten to fifteen seconds. The level of training obviously plays a major role here. In 2009, an Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. It was later shown that one of the causes was that the co-pilots were not well trained. They had fifteen minutes between the occurrence of the problems and the crash. This proved to be insufficient to get to the bottom of the problem. A combination of too much information, limited time, and lack of training can lead to poor decision-making.”
How can you prevent disasters like this? “Training is essential. And, in a broader perspective, good education. I think there are long-term effects of IT of which we are not sufficiently aware, especially effects on children. They are the first generation to grow up with this amount of technology, even at school. Research shows that the use of IT in education affects the way in which children process information. For example, researchers found that neu
ral activity was far more enhanced in children who had practiced printing by hand than in those who had simply looked at letters on a screen. Excessive IT use also leads to a loss of concentration. They’re losing really important skills.”
Will IT give them new skills in return? “They do indeed acquire other skills, such as flexible and interactive learning. But we don’t yet know what the exact impact is of a lot of IT use on their brains. And that’s dangerous, which is why psychiatrists recommend using less IT in education. German psychiatrist Manfred Spitzer even considers Steve Jobs schools, where children learn everything via the iPad, to be child abuse. There are advantages, but they don’t outweigh the disadvantages, such as addiction and hyperconnectivity.”
How does IT overload the brain? “IT produces huge amounts of information that many people can’t handle. People are often blamed for this: we are too slow, we make mistakes, we get overloaded, and become stressed. In our book, we use the blender metaphor. Imagine that your brain is a blender with information being added in the form of pieces of fruit. If your blender’s engine is strong enough, you can turn it into something manageable. If you throw too much fruit in the blender at once, you can’t process it properly. You end up with indigestible chunks.”
Can IT itself also provide us with a solution for the overloading of our brains, or do we have to look for that solution outside the digital world? “Artificial intelligence can help us, but the danger is losing control. Think, for example, of the problems we have with Cambridge Analytica, which influenced elections via Facebook. We need a better understanding of how the algorithms behind these kinds of technologies work. If we rely too much on technology, without training people to understand the artificial intelligence and the algorithms behind it, we give away control and, with it, our freedom. Think of artificial intelligence as a blender with a very strong engine that can help you mix. You may have fewer problems with indigestible information. But if you don’t know what the input is, you have no control; you don’t know whether you will end up drinking strawberry, banana or potato.”
Is there a world possible in which we experience the joys but not the burdens of IT? “I think so, but we will always have the problem of globalization. For example, there are companies and countries that are making good progress in the area of work-life balance. Mercedes, for example, gives its employees the option of automatically deleting all emails received during holidays. A new labor law in France gives employees the right to disconnect outside of working hours. But the problem is that companies in these countries communicate, trade or compete with companies in other countries. Different rules apply there, and it’s usually not the healthier country that wins.”
