Digital Dementia : Tech is Angel or Devil?
When I was reading a book “the iPhone”, my phone rang. It was notifications from Slack. My colleague ask me to work on algorithm, and I did that.After that, I started to read this fabulous one.
Apple’s been very fortunate. It’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world. In 1984, we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple, it changed the whole computer industry. In 2001, we introduced the first iPod, and… it didn’t just — it didn’t just change the way we all listen to music, it changed the entire music industry. Well, today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class.
Then, facebook messenger calls me. “Hey, I saw you got accepted YC! Congrats!” and I replied. Then, Feedly says “Learn more about Disrupt, and make the world a better place”.
Facebook, Twitter, Slack, News Apps, and even Dating Apps. They annoy me every 3 minutes. I cannot read a fabulous book without distraction. There are massive notifications from a tiny small box.
I have ADHD, and I get distracted very easily. Also, people have Facebook Depression and people become irritated in too much information. Some Researches show that people connect in social media at the expense of Emotional connectivity in reality.
So people get distracted, lose their concentration, and become irritated or depressive because of Tech Giants. I call this situation “Digital Dementia”

Digital Media
On the other hand, people enjoy the massive information, and the world becomes more smooth, and we can compare many aspects without going stores, also, we can google if we don’t know the word and schema, SNS help us connect others very easily.
But, we cannot focus instead of the flood of information in our brain. Notifications interrupt us with reading a book, meditation, and also chat with a girlfriend. The study by Virginia University shows that Smartphone Alerts increase not only inattention and also hyperactivity. Smartphone makes human unhealthy.
Also in the Los Angels, the similar thing reported. The notification from digital media have possibility to be inattentive, and also other data shows that there has a possibility to get depressive because of using Social Media like Facebook. People tend to think Social media is augmented relationship in the real, but it is not. It is just alternatives for real relationship, so the more you are obsessed with social media, the less your real friend become.
Our brain is plastic
Our brain is not elastic, but plastic. It means our brain will be changing after and after. Is it good or bad? Technology is just a tool. But many companies never think about the affection for the humane brain.
So, every company should learn Cognitive Science and Brain Science, and they should have moral. We can be the Angel or the Evil through technology, so we should think about the right thing; it is very difficult. We have massive information now thanks to mobility. This makes us distractive, it is difficult to focus on one thing because there are many attractive things; blogs, messages, scandalous news, notifications from the app.
Our Working Memory decides how to do or what information should be stored in your brain. But Digital Media makes our brain weaken this process, and it means Long-Term-Memory will be also weakened. Long-Term-Memory is not just a memory, we have the schema of this memory, and process how to think of it. We can understand complicated things by this schema and process, but people sacrifice them by getting massive information.
Of course, we can get information ASAP, and we can google when you encounter the unknown thing. But we have to think about what we lose by connecting the Internet 24/7.

Digital Dementia and ill-posed problem
When you have a problem in daily life or working, the problem is often the ill-posed problem, so we may not have only 1 answer to solve that. There are many alternatives and the solution will change as time goes by.
In the Long-Term Memory, we have the schema in the past, and we can combine or imagine from the experience. You perceive the problem, get insights from many aspects, and maybe you can restructure the problem.
To address that, we need to train our Long-Term Memory as well as Working Memory because, in the ill-posed problems, we have to use the analogy from schema from Long-Term Memory and Working-Memory to make decisions in an unpredictable situation.
The more Digital Dementia becomes serious, the less you can deal with daily problems. Technology can be Angel but also Devil if you are not thinking about Humanity, Cognitive Science, and Brain Science.

Creating Angel for Humanity
I think we have to create an Angel for Humanity because if you don’t think about Humanity, and think about Money, you can be evil to get money by using psychology like Game or SNS. We are creating a solution for getting organized for ADHD, and it will be good for not only ADHD and also people who have Digital Dementia.
We are now creating a holographic virtual assistant for ADHD based on Cognitive Science. If you have any interest to me, feel free to contact me at LinkedIn or E-mail. Thank you for reading.
HoloAsh, Inc. CEO Yoshua Kishi
yoshua@holoash.com
