All those tweets, apps, updates may drain brain dot. commentary

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Human minds evolved to constantly scan for novelty, lest we miss any sign of food, danger or, on a good day, mating opportunities.

But the modern world bombards us with stimuli, a nonstop stream of e-mails, chats, texts, tweets, status updates and video links to piano playing cats.

There's growing concern among scientists that indulging in these ceaseless disruptions isn't good for our brains, in much the way that excessive sugar or fat - other things we evolved to crave when they were in shorter supply - isn't good for our bodies.

And some believe it's time to consider a technology diet.

A team at UCSF published a study last week that found further evidence that multitasking impedes short-term memory, especially among older adults. Researchers there previously found that distractions of the sort that smart phones and social networks present can hinder long-term memory and mental performance.

A 2009 study at Stanford University found that, surprisingly, persistent multitaskers perform worse than infrequent ones on tests that require them to jump from task to task. It seems they were more easily distracted by irrelevant information thrown up during the evaluations.

That suggests continual multitasking may impair the filter that keeps our brain from flitting from thing to thing - making it harder to resist, say, the siren song of cat clips.

Some psychiatrists worry that people are increasingly demonstrating addict-like behavior when it comes to technology, unable to ignore its pull, even when it negatively affects them.

"The best way to define it is in terms of the offline consequences," said Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, director of Stanford's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic and author of the new book "Virtually You." "Are we suffering in terms of our cognition and attention spans because of all the time we spend online? Is our professional life negatively impacted because of all the nonessential Internet surfing we do at work?"

Too often, he says, the answer is yes.

Among the constantly connected, many say they suddenly lack the focus and attention span they once had. They find it harder to get through a book, movie, conversation or even article (where you going, reader?) without feeling the tug of technology.

Recognized symptoms

Tiffany Woolf, a part-time publicist in San Francisco, recognized these symptoms in herself and recently confessed to friends that she thought she was addicted to her iPhone. They ardently agreed.

Most troublesome is that she finds herself reaching for her phone when spending time with her son, wanting to check e-mail while they watch children's shows or snapping photos at the park to instantly upload to Facebook.

"I'm trying to figure out why, and how to curb it, because it's not necessary and it takes away from being in the moment," she said.

Woolf now turns her phone off on Saturdays and tries to limit herself to five checks a day when she's not working. In addition to striking a better balance for herself, she wants to set a good example for her son, who she's worried will be besieged by technological distractions.

She's right.

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation released in January 2010 concluded that 8- to 18-year-olds devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to entertainment media per day. But because they dedicate so much of that time using more than one medium at once - say, scanning Facebook as they listen to music and chat with friends - they actually pack in about 10 hours and 45 minutes of content in that period.

That's up considerably from just five years earlier, when kids spent six hours and 21 minutes squeezing in eight hours and 33 minutes of content.

To be sure, PCs, tablets, smart phones and social networks have added enormous capabilities to our lives. They connect us to our friends, work and world in ways we could scarcely imagine a few years ago, while turbo charging our ability to find, synthesize and present information.

Demanding problems

But here's the rub: The problems we face today don't call for shallow understanding and short attention spans. They demand minds that can tolerate dull details, and maintain focus when wading through abstruse subject matter. Unparalleled access to information only does so much to solve problems, absent comprehension and perspective - as this nation's partisans prove daily.

"More and more, society is looking like a chat room," Aboujaoude said.

So what do we do?

When it comes to public safety, we as a society are already taking action. California and dozens of other states have outlawed texting while driving for some or all drivers. One New York senator even proposed banning pedestrians from using cell phones, music players and gaming devices on public sidewalks. (Big Bubble Gum somehow managed to keep its product out of the bill.)

But when it comes to technology's impact on our mental performance, drawing up laws to limit use would strike many - including this columnist - as every bit the paternalist overreach as rationing sugar.

Still, the diet parallel is instructive here. Our schools, doctors and public health officials preach moderation. Universities diligently study the issue, providing a scientific foundation for sound policy recommendations. And advocacy groups lobby against the blatantly bad, like trans fats or the KFC Double Coronary ... I mean, Double Down.

These approaches are all worth considering for the growing problem of technology-gorging, too.

No remedies yet

The scientists contacted for this column said it's too early in the research to prescribe specific remedies, which in itself argues for more funding. But each said they'd seen enough data to conclude that we shouldn't reflexively consider more technology an unqualified good, as it often is. They've also seen enough to institute some changes in their own lives.

That includes Adam Gazzaley, director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center at UCSF and one of the authors of the National Academy of Sciences paper. When he's working on an important task, he shuts the door, flips his phone to airplane mode, logs off e-mail and buckles down.

"I listen to what my research shows," he said. "My quality will be better if I engage."