GLEN CANYON NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Utah — Todd Braver emerges from a
tent nestled against the canyon wall. He has a slight tan, except for a
slim pale band around his wrist.
For the first time in three days in the wilderness, Mr. Braver is not wearing his watch. “I forgot,” he says.
It is a small thing, the kind of change many vacationers notice in
themselves as they unwind and lose track of time. But for Mr. Braver
and his companions, these moments lead to a question: What is happening
to our brains?
Mr. Braver, a psychology professor at Washington University
in St. Louis, was one of five neuroscientists on an unusual journey.
They spent a week in late May in this remote area of southern Utah,
rafting the San Juan River, camping on the soft banks and hiking the
tributary canyons.
It was a primitive trip with a sophisticated goal: to understand how
heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think
and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects.
Cellphones do not work here, e-mail is inaccessible and laptops have
been left behind. It is a trip into the heart of silence — increasingly
rare now that people can get online even in far-flung vacation spots.
As they head down the tight curves the San Juan has carved from ancient
sandstone, the travelers will, not surprisingly, unwind, sleep better
and lose the nagging feeling to check for a phone in the pocket. But
the significance of such changes is a matter of debate for them.
Some of the scientists say a vacation like this hardly warrants much
scrutiny. But the trip’s organizer, David Strayer, a psychology
professor at the University of Utah, says that studying what happens when we step away from our devices and rest our brains — in particular, how attention, memory and learning are affected — is important science.
“Attention is the holy grail,” Mr. Strayer says.
“Everything that you’re conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget, depends on it.”
Echoing other researchers, Mr. Strayer says that understanding how
attention works could help in the treatment of a host of maladies, like
attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia
and depression. And he says that on a day-to-day basis, too much
digital stimulation can “take people who would be functioning O.K. and
put them in a range where they’re not psychologically healthy.”
The quest to understand the impact on the brain of heavy technology use
— at a time when such use is exploding — is still in its early stages.
To Mr. Strayer, it is no less significant than when scientists
investigated the effects of consuming too much meat or alcohol.
But stepping away is easier for some than others. The trip begins with
a strong defense of digital connectedness, a debate that revolves
around one particularly important e-mail.
On the Road
The five scientists on the trip can be loosely divided into two groups: the believers and the skeptics.
The believers are Mr. Strayer and Paul Atchley, 40, a professor at the University of Kansas who studies teenagers’ compulsive use of cellphones. They argue that heavy technology use can inhibit deep thought and cause anxiety, and that getting out into nature can help. They take pains in their own lives to regularly log off.
The skeptics use their digital gadgets without reservation. They are
not convinced that anything lasting will come of the trip — personally
or scientifically.
This group includes the fast-talking Mr. Braver, 41, a brain imaging
expert; Steven Yantis, 54, the tall and contemplative chairman of the
psychological and brain sciences department at Johns Hopkins, who
studies how people switch between tasks; and Art Kramer, 57, a
white-bearded professor at the University of Illinois who has gained attention for his studies of the neurological benefits of exercise.
Also on the trip are a reporter and a photographer, and Richard Boyer,
a quiet outdoorsman and accomplished landscape painter, who helps Mr.
Strayer lead the journey.
Among the bright academic lights in the group, Mr. Kramer is the most
prominent. At the time of the trip he was about to take over a
$300,000-a-year position as director of the Beckman Institute, a
leading research center at the University of Illinois with around 1,000
scientists and staff workers and tens of millions of dollars in grant
financing.
He is also intense personally — someone who has been challenging
himself since early in life; he says he left home when he was a
teenager, became an amateur boxer and, later, flew airplanes,
rock-climbed and smashed his knee in a “high-speed skiing accident.”
They are driving six hours from Salt Lake City to the river, and they
stop at a camping store for last-minute supplies. Mr. Kramer waits out
front, checking e-mail on his BlackBerry Curve. This sets off a debate
between the believers and skeptics.
Back in the car, Mr. Kramer says he checked his phone because he was
waiting for important news: whether his lab has received a $25 million
grant from the military to apply neuroscience to the study of
ergonomics. He has instructed his staff to send a text message to an
emergency satellite phone the group will carry with them.
Mr. Atchley says he doesn’t understand why Mr. Kramer would bother.
“The grant will still be there when you get back,” he says.
“Of course you’d want to know about a $25 million grant,” Mr. Kramer
responds. Pressed by Mr. Atchley on the significance of knowing
immediately, he adds: “They would expect me to get right back to them.”
It is a debate that has become increasingly common as technology has
redefined the notion of what is “urgent.” How soon do people need to
get information and respond to it? The believers in the group say the
drumbeat of incoming data has created a false sense of urgency that can
affect people’s ability to focus.
In his case, Mr. Kramer says there have been few side effects: the only
time he could recall being overly distracted by technology was when he
became too immersed in writing a paper, and was late to pick up his
teenage daughter.
“As academics, we live on computers,” he says.
The scenery has turned spartan as they drop down into a red-rock
desert. The group stops for gas in Green River, where Mr. Kramer checks
his e-mail again. Mr. Strayer quips that he shows signs of addiction.
“Some people think only others have the problem,” Mr. Strayer says. But
he concedes of Mr. Kramer, whom he likes and under whom he earned his
doctorate: “He’s under a lot of pressure.”
On the River
They awaken at the Recapture Lodge, a rustic two-story motel surrounded
by cottonwood trees. There are no phones in the rooms, but there is
wireless Internet access, installed a few years ago because, the
proprietor says, people could not stand to be without it.
Mr. Kramer still has not received any news on the grant. He stuffs his
laptop into a backpack and stores it at the motel office.
Hours later, the group arrives at the raft launching site, Mexican Hat,
named for a sombrero-shaped rock outcropping. The travelers assemble
and pack the rafts, loading food for five days, beer, water jugs, a
portable toilet, tents and sleeping bags, kitchen and first aid
supplies. Then they’re off.
A short distance downstream they see it: a narrow steel bridge 150 feet
above the river — after which there is no longer any cellphone
coverage.
“It’s the end of civilization,” Mr. Atchley jokes.
Late in the afternoon, they make camp on the banks. They eat pork
chops, the Big Dipper brilliant above, the thousand-foot canyon walls
narrowing their view of the heavens. A few bats dart and dive, seeking
bugs drawn to the flashlights.
The men drink Tecate beer and talk about the brain. They are thinking about a seminal study from the University of Michigan that showed people can better learn after walking in the woods than after walking a busy street.
The study indicates that learning centers in the brain become taxed
when asked to process information, even during the relatively passive
experience of taking in an urban setting. By extension, some scientists
believe heavy multitasking fatigues the brain, draining it of the
ability to focus.
Mr. Strayer, the trip leader, argues that nature can refresh the brain.
“Our senses change. They kind of recalibrate — you notice sounds, like
these crickets chirping; you hear the river, the sounds, the smells,
you become more connected to the physical environment, the earth,
rather than the artificial environment.”
“That’s why they call it vacation. It’s restorative,” Mr. Braver says.
He wonders if there’s any science behind the nature idea. “Part of
being a good scientist is being skeptical.”
Mr. Braver accepts the Michigan research but wants to understand
precisely what happens inside the brain. And he wonders: Why don’t
brains adapt to the heavy stimulation, turning us into ever-stronger
multitaskers?
“Right,” says Mr. Kramer, the skeptic. “Why wouldn’t the circuits be exercised, in a sense, and we’d get stronger?”
Ideas Start to Flow
Scientists have long thought about how new forms of media affect
attention — from the printing press to the television. But the modern
study of attention emerged in the early 1980s with the spread of
machines that allowed researchers to see changes in blood flow and
electrical activity in the brain. Newer machines have let them pinpoint
the parts of the brain that light up when people switch from one task
to another, or when they are paying attention to music or a movie.
This has become such a sizzling field of research that two years ago the National Institutes of Health established a division to support studies of the parts of the brain involved with focus.
Now, Mr. Yantis says, “we can study the brain and the mind together in
a rigorous scientific way, rather than a Freudian
sit-back-and-think-about-it way.”
This trip is more about rowing while thinking. Mr. Braver and Mr.
Yantis sit in a red kayak in calm waters, passing a goose and her two
goslings on the banks. The skeptics are talking about how to study the
toll taken by constant interruption from e-mail and other digital
bursts.
Behavioral studies have shown that performance suffers when people
multitask. These researchers are wondering whether attention and focus
can take a hit when people merely anticipate the arrival of more
digital stimulation.
“The expectation of e-mail seems to be taking up our working memory,” Mr. Yantis says.
Working memory is a precious resource in the brain. The scientists
hypothesize that a fraction of brain power is tied up in anticipating
e-mail and other new information — and that they might be able to prove
it using imaging.
“To the extent you have less working memory, you have less space for
storing and integrating ideas and therefore less to do the reasoning
you need to do,” says Mr. Kramer, floating nearby.
Over the course of the next few days, the rafters find themselves
darting in and out of such scientific conversations. Two scientists
packing their tents discuss which imaging techniques may best show the
effects of digital overload on the brain. The full group tosses around
ways to measure the release of brain chemicals into the bloodstream. A
pair paddling the big raft talk about how to apply neuroeconomics —
measuring how the brain values information — to understand compulsive
texting by teenagers.
The conversations blur, with periods of silence and awed looks at
surroundings — the circling hawks, the bighorn sheep. There are
moments, too, when the men experience intense focus during physical
challenges, like rafting the rapids or hiking narrow canyon walls.
This is the rhythm of the trip: As the river flows, so do the ideas.
“There’s a real mental freedom in knowing no one or nothing can
interrupt you,” Mr. Braver says. He echoes the others in noting that
the trip is in many ways more effective than work retreats set in
hotels, often involving hundreds of people who shuffle through quick
meetings, wielding BlackBerrys. “It’s why I got into science, to talk
about ideas.”
‘Third-Day Syndrome’
“Time is slowing down,” Mr. Kramer says. He has been moving quickly his
whole life, since he left home at 15, and has elevated himself to a
position of great influence. It’s the second day on the river, and he
has finished packing his tent. He’s the first of the morning to do so,
but he feels no urgency.
He has not read any of the research papers he brought. And the $25
million e-mail? “I was never worried about it. I haven’t thought about
it,” he says, as if the very idea were silly.
Mr. Kramer says the group has become more reflective, quieter, more
focused on the surroundings. “If I looked around like this at work,
people would think I was goofing off,” he says.
The others are more relaxed too. Mr. Braver decides against coffee,
bypassing his usual ritual. The next day, he neglects to put on his
watch, though he cautions against reading too much into it. “I
sometimes forget to put my watch on at home, but in fairness, I usually
have my phone with me and it has a clock on it.”
Mr. Strayer, the believer, says the travelers are experiencing a stage
of relaxation he calls “third-day syndrome.” Its symptoms may be
unsurprising. But even the more skeptical of the scientists say
something is happening to their brains that reinforces their scientific
discussions — something that could be important to helping people cope
in a world of constant electronic noise.
“If we can find out that people are walking around fatigued and not
realizing their cognitive potential,” Mr. Braver says, then pauses and
adds: “What can we do to get us back to our full potential?”
What he is getting at is something the scientists won’t put a fine
point on until the last few minutes of the trip: they have ideas on how
to answer this question.
Heading Home
Later that night, back at the Recapture Lodge, Mr. Kramer reclaims his
laptop from the front desk. At first, he says he’ll wait to log on
until he showers and rests. Then he decides to have a quick peek. He
has received 216 e-mail messages, but nothing about the military grant.
“The $25 million saga continues,” he says, and logs off.
The next morning, he and Mr. Braver sit in the back of the car, heading
to the airport, the pair of skeptics sharing beef jerky and a
perspective. The trip didn’t transform them, but it did get them to
change the way they think about their research — and themselves.
Mr. Braver says that when he retrieved his phone the night before, it
dawned on him how much he turns to it in tiny moments of boredom:
“Sometimes I do use it as an excuse to be antisocial.”
When he gets back to St. Louis, he says, he plans to focus more on
understanding what happens to the brain as it rests. He wants to use
imaging technology to see whether the effect of nature on the brain can
be measured and whether there are other ways to reproduce it, say,
through meditation.
Mr. Kramer says he wants to look at whether the benefits to the brain —
the clearer thoughts, for example — come from the experience of being
in nature, the exertion of hiking and rafting, or a combination.
Mr. Atchley says he can see new ways to understand why teenagers decide
to text even in dangerous situations, like driving. Perhaps the
addictiveness of digital stimulation leads to poor decision-making. Mr.
Yantis says a late-night conversation beneath stars and circling bats
gave him new ways to think about his research into how and why people
are distracted by irrelevant streams of information.
Even without knowing exactly how the trip affected their brains, the
scientists are prepared to recommend a little downtime as a path to
uncluttered thinking. As Mr. Kramer puts it: “How many years did we
prescribe aspirin without knowing the exact mechanism?”
As they near the airport, Mr. Kramer also mentions a personal
discovery: “I have a colleague who says that I’m being very impolite
when I pull out a computer during meetings. I say: ‘I can listen.’ ”
“Maybe I’m not listening so well. Maybe I can work at being more engaged.”
![[WORKFAM]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PJ-BE904_WORKFA_NS_20120123173612.jpg)
![[ADELEgraphic]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/RV-AF961A_ADELE_G_20120210234610.jpg)
![[SKYBOX art2]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AY408_SKYBOX_F_20101129215644.jpg)
Recent Comments