On Cerebral Fragmentation
Yes I am Talking About the Brain
This post will be a little different than my usual tech ramblings. I will preface this article by saying:
I am not a scientist.
I am not a psychologist.
I am not writing this because I want to be perceived as “intellectual.”
In no way am I suggesting that the contents of this article can help, improve, or optimize your cognitive function.
I am merely spewing forth thoughts from my brain.
Over the last few months, I noticed that my ability to focus for long periods of time seemed to be somewhat diminished or degraded. A few days ago I decided to take a mental inventory. I went through the past few months and racked my brain to figure out what could be the possible reason for this degradation of focus and overall mental stamina. This is not something new to me. Every so often, I realize that my brain is not working as optimally as I would like it to.
First. let’s take a short detour and focus on something that is often talked about but seldom unpacked. It’s quite common for non-technical people to come up to me and say, “How do you just know these things? I could never come up with that in a million years.” Techies (or more fittingly called, tech nerds) seem to be a rare breed to the uninitiated. Making sense of apps, services, programs, or even just hardware is foreign to many.
I am the default “go-to” tech guy for all my friends and family. That being said, it might be a shocker to them that I do not personally possess the knowledge to answer each and every tech related question thrown at me. I do, however, possess a more extensive set of data points allowing me to make an educated guess as to what the answer can be.
The assumption or idea that tech nerds are smarter or more intelligent than the average nontechnical person is somewhat insane and patently false. The fact is, different people think differently. Shocker!
It is a little meta to think about thinking. Afterall, reflecting on the act of thought is a fundamentally self-referential exercise. Even more meta is thinking about the cognitive process of assimilating sensory input, transforming it through mental operations, categorizing and organizing it, and retaining the relevant data for future utilization, discarding that which is inconsequential.
I would also like to clarify here. I do not like people who talk about themselves incessantly. I personally, talk about myself very little simply because of that aforementioned fact. That being said, sometimes it is good to zoom out and take a third person view of ourselves. How does <NAME> receive, process, and retain relevant information? What makes it function and what makes it stand out.
The first brain function that comes to mind (that was a good pun ok) is something called “Cognitive Capacity”:
Dr. Olenka Bilash, at the University of Alberta, defines cognitive capacity as “the total amount of information the brain is capable of retaining at any particular moment.” She gives the example of attention and points out that different activities take up different amounts of our brain’s attention capacity.
https://mybrainware.com/blog/what-do-you-mean-by-cognitive-capacity/
I like to think of it as a pie chart.
Here is what it looks like when I am a bit unfocused. I am entering data which is my main task taking up 62.3% of my cognitive capacity and focus. I am also listening to music, drinking coffee, planning my next meal, planning my next task, and breathing. Obviously the above percentages are just filler. The main idea is that, the more distractions, the less cognitive capacity is allocated to the task at hand.
The second brain function is called “Cognitive Agility”:
That is, cognitive agility is based on openness to alternatives, flexibility to respond with alternative solutions, and the ability to change the focus of attention between wide and narrow perspectives for deep analysis whilst also not missing new information in a changing context.
https://wavellroom.com/2019/07/09/cognitive-agility-providing-a-performance-edge/
Going back to a visual now…
Ok, colors are not lifelike. But I think of each different colored brain as a state.
First, the normal, resting state is shown in the normal brain. Overall, there is an open nature to this state. You notice things, engage with the world, and are not particularly allocating cognitive resources to a specific task. In a sense, you are consuming information leisurely.
Second we have a high focus problem solving state which requires the allocation of cognitive resources in order to solve the problem at hand. This usually involves a calculation using past experiences to solve the problem.
And lastly we have the high focus learning state. Instead of consuming information leisurely, the brain is wired to focus on retaining and tagging information for long-term or short-term use. There are various methods and variations in how people save and tag this data, which I will talk about later.
Keep in mind, there are definitely more states. The states I listed are examples only.
The last brain function that I want to go over is “Memory”:
Memory is our ability to encode, store, retain, and subsequently recall information and past experiences in the human brain. It can be thought of in general terms as the use of past experience to affect or influence current behaviour whether that's soon after the information has been processed, or many years into the future.
https://human-memory.net/what-is-memory/
This is where the most variation appears to occur. People remember differently. I am not sure if this is proven or not, but it would seem reasonable and accurate to assume that two human being cannot remember the exact same thing the exact same way.
I can only really talk about how I personally remember things. Of course we have to go to a visual:
This is a stripped down version of what I believe to be the process by which I process, encode, and store data from outside stimuli. First, obviously the data has to be seen or experienced. Next the brain has to filter out what data is important, necessary, or worth remembering. After that, the desired data points are tagged (it is not just long term and short term) and stored. The undesired data is dropped.
As I said before, people remember and process information differently. I just happen to think and recall information in terms of strings or timelines.
If I want to recall something, I mentally trace it back to where I left it. I believe this is the reason why technology makes sense to me. Almost all technology fields require a formula or a process to understand them.
In school my favorite subject was History. Why? Because it is one massive timeline. I also liked English because sentences, paragraphs, and papers are all structured and follow a concrete process. I like rap music because the beat is predictable and normalized. I am a fan of soccer because of the formulaic nature of tactics, learned and acquired technical intuition, physical energy regulation, and the required allocation of cognitive resources in order to focus.
I am not good at comprehending abstracts. I am not an artist. I am not a philosopher. I am not a musician. I am not exactly a creative person.
Now that we have an understanding of some of the functions of the brain (I only tackled the most relevant), let’s tackle the problem of my degradation of focus and overall mental stamina, shall we?
After taking an inventory I found the issue. I actually found the issue quite easily. I am consuming too much mindless, garbage content. How did I arrive at that conclusion? Simple.
I was spending too much time consuming garbage. Who actually needs to watch every Linus Tech Tips video. Who actually needs to check NYPost, CNN, FoxNews, and 20+ tech blogs twice or three times a day (Feedly made it too easy for me). Who actually needs to check notifications for releases on GitHub (cringe). Who needs to be assured that there will be a smooth economic landing more than once a day (*J Powell enters the chat). Who actually needs to listen to every episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” or the “Lex Friedman Podcast.”
Let's be real, we all need some good old entertainment in our lives. Sometimes you just gotta kick back and watch "The Great British Baking Show" on Netflix to unwind and let your brain relax. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying remove all forms of entertainment from your life. That's just cruel. I'm just saying, everything is good in moderation, even watching delicious cakes getting baked to perfection.
When your brain is not changing between states frequently (think cognitive agility) it can feel “slower” or more fragmented. You essentially get into a rut and can’t seem to get out of it. And of course, if you don’t exercise the brain, it won’t stay sharp.
Luckily, I have refused to consume short-form content. Personally, I think Tik-Tok, YT Shorts, and Instagram are cancerous and destructive. Although experts claim that the impact of consuming short-form content on the brain has not been studied, it is evident that it can have negative effects. I will write another article about this som day.
Long story short, I think cutting out overconsumption of entertainment will most definitely increase my cognitive agility and capacity. It will also improve short term memory. If it doesn’t I will write an article about it.
I want to go from this:
To this:
Just kidding on that last chart.
Cheers,
Joe