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Study finds ultimate hack to protect teen brains from harmful screen time: Exercise (and good role-modeling)

October 27, 2021 by Greater Good Science Center

Recent­ly, the Wall Street Jour­nal ran an arti­cle about how Insta­gram was affect­ing teen men­tal health. In par­tic­u­lar, some inter­nal stud­ies at Face­book (which owns Insta­gram) appeared to con­firm that when teen girls used the site, they suf­fered poor­er body image and were at increased risk for depres­sion and eat­ing disorders.

But is social media use itself at fault for mak­ing teen men­tal health worse? While some stud­ies sug­gest it is, oth­ers paint a more nuanced pic­ture, find­ing it dif­fi­cult to pin­point prob­lems with screen time itself ver­sus oth­er fac­tors some­times asso­ci­at­ed with social media use that may reduce teen well-being—like cyber­bul­ly­ing or social iso­la­tion. Plus, cur­rent con­clu­sions are often based on data from a sin­gle point in time, which makes it hard to prove that extend­ed screen time actu­al­ly caus­es poor­er men­tal health.

Now, find­ings from an inter­na­tion­al study on teens (details below) add more to this debate and point toward poten­tial guide­lines for screen use. Focus­ing on over 577,000 ado­les­cents from 42 coun­tries across Europe and North Amer­i­ca, the study’s results sug­gest that we might not have to wor­ry about screen time in small­er dos­es, until it reach­es a cer­tain harm­ful lev­el, and that exer­cise can play a pro­tec­tive role no mat­ter how much time a teen spends on screens. [Read more…] about Study finds ulti­mate hack to pro­tect teen brains from harm­ful screen time: Exer­cise (and good role-modeling)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adolescents, exercise, Facebook, Instagram, mental health, mental wellbeing, Physical-activity, psychosomatic, role-modeling, screen time, teen, teen mental health

Debate: Will brain-computer interfaces replace smartphones and other “mediating” devices?

August 17, 2020 by SharpBrains

The Fifth Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion: where mind meets machine (The National):

The Fifth Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion will make that con­nec­tion clos­er and seam­less, and will feel unmedi­at­ed. The smart device onto which we tap and into which we speak will dis­ap­pear. Brain-com­put­er inter­faces will replace them…Can we con­nect our brains – and our minds – to machines? The short answer is yes, and we have done so for some time. The longer answer is more com­pli­cat­ed, but more interesting.

[Read more…] about Debate: Will brain-com­put­er inter­faces replace smart­phones and oth­er “medi­at­ing” devices?

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Amazon, brain-computer interface, Brain-Computer Interfaces, Ctrl-labs, Facebook, Fifth Industrial Revolution, Fourth Industrial Revolution, Kernel, Neuralink

Four guidelines for smart use of smartphones

November 14, 2019 by Greater Good Science Center

These days, you can’t go any­where with­out hear­ing about how tech­nol­o­gy is ruin­ing every­thing, includ­ing our hap­pi­ness. There is some truth to this, but it’s not the whole story.

Tech­nol­o­gy can be bad for us—for exam­ple, when social media gives us FOMO (fear of miss­ing out) or traps us in fil­ter bub­bles that pre­vent us from see­ing mul­ti­ple points of view on impor­tant issues. As a soci­ety, we are increas­ing­ly con­cerned that tech­nolo­gies like smart­phones and social media result in more social com­par­i­son, bul­ly­ing, and loneliness—all stum­bling blocks to hap­pi­ness. Tech­nol­o­gy seems to be bad for our hap­pi­ness when it inter­feres with the men­tal, social, emo­tion­al, and behav­ioral process­es that con­tribute to well-being.

But we often fail to real­ize (and dis­cuss) the ways that tech­nol­o­gy can also sup­port hap­pi­ness and well-being—for exam­ple [Read more…] about Four guide­lines for smart use of smartphones

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: boost your health, CBT, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, depression, digital detox, emotion regulation, Facebook, Gratitude, happiness, mental health challenges, mindfulness, resilience, smartphones, social-media, technology, well-being, wellness apps

Q&A: What does the Facebook acquisition of CTRL-Labs mean for Neurotechnology and Augmented & Virtual Reality?

September 26, 2019 by Avery Bedows

__________

While sit­ting at din­ner with an unsus­pect­ing friend, my phone blew up with odd­ly-late mes­sages from fel­low neu­rotech­nol­o­gy com­rades. CTRL-Labs announced their impend­ing acqui­si­tion by Face­book and inte­gra­tion into Face­book Real­i­ty Labs (respon­si­ble for Ocu­lus et al.), for enough mon­ey to buy my guilt-induc­ing­ly-expen­sive New York cof­fee for a mea­ger 550,000 years. Woah—so very many ques­tions. I fig­ured I’d share [Read more…] about Q&A: What does the Face­book acqui­si­tion of CTRL-Labs mean for Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and Aug­ment­ed & Vir­tu­al Reality?

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Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AR/VR, central nervous system, cognition, Consumer neurotechnology, Ctrl-labs, EMG, emotion, Facebook, Facebook Reality Labs, medical neurotechnolog, neurotech, Neurotechnology

Virtual reality games and related neurotechnologies spark a new generation of dementia & cognitive tests

September 13, 2017 by SharpBrains

The Sea Hero Quest vir­tu­al real­i­ty game is played on a Sam­sung Gear VR head­set. Source: Glitch­ers Ltd.

__________

The Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Game Gath­er­ing Data for Demen­tia Researchers (Bloomberg):

“Nav­i­gat­ing an ice-walled lake or scour­ing a swamp for a hid­den mon­ster may sound like a fun premise for a vir­tu­al-real­i­ty video game. But there’s a seri­ous pur­pose behind the new game Sea Hero Quest VR: help­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tists design a new test for demen­tia. [Read more…] about Vir­tu­al real­i­ty games and relat­ed neu­rotech­nolo­gies spark a new gen­er­a­tion of demen­tia & cog­ni­tive tests

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Cognitive-impairment, Cognitive-tests, dementia, Dementia Test, dementia tests, dementia-research, Facebook, game, Glitchers, neurotechnologies, Oculus Rift, Samsung, Sea Hero Quest, Sea Hero Quest VR, virtual-reality

E‑Newsletter: Neuroimaging + machine learning can predict, with 96% accuracy, whether high-risk 6‑month-old babies will develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by age 2

June 27, 2017 by SharpBrains

Researchers use brain imag­ing and machine learn­ing to pre­dict which high-risk infants will devel­op autism. Cred­it: Car­oli­na Insti­tute for Devel­op­men­tal Disabilities.

_____

Time for Sharp­Brains’ June e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing sci­en­tif­ic find­ings, promis­ing assess­ments, ther­a­pies and brain health mon­i­tor­ing tools…and some fun opti­cal illusions 🙂

New research

  • Study com­bines neu­roimag­ing with machine learn­ing to pre­dict, with 96% accu­ra­cy, whether high-risk 6‑month-old babies will devel­op autism spec­trum dis­or­der (ASD) by age 2
  • Cog­ni­tive Train­ing or Gingko Bilo­ba to pre­vent cog­ni­tive decline and demen­tia? New com­pre­hen­sive report by the Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, Engi­neer­ing, and Med­i­cine clar­i­fies pri­or­i­ties for pub­lic health and for future research
  • Neu­roimag­ing study finds exten­sive brain rewiring–in just six months–among illit­er­ate adults learn­ing to read and write
  • Chil­dren with ADHD should be reeval­u­at­ed each year, since atten­tion prob­lems per­ceived by teach­ers are far less sta­ble than we imagine

New tools

  • Mind­strong Health rais­es $14 mil­lion to mod­ern­ize the diag­no­sis and treat­ment of neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders via arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and smartphones
  • The FDA cre­ates new Dig­i­tal Health unit to reimag­ine reg­u­la­to­ry paths in the age of scal­able, AI-enhanced innovation
  • Neu­rotech start-up Rythm rais­es $11 mil­lion more to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize sleep-mon­i­tor­ing head­band Dreem
  • Savonix rais­es $5.1 mil­lion to com­mer­cial­ize mobile neu­rocog­ni­tive assess­ment in the US, Chi­na and Japan
  • The dual chal­lenge ahead of Facebook’s Typ­ing-by-Brain project: 1) devel­op the neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, 2) devel­op the science

New thinking

  • In hon­or of Alzheimer’s & Brain Aware­ness Month, let’s dis­cuss 10 Key Facts To Har­ness Brain Plas­tic­i­ty And Pro­long Brain Health
  • 11 ear­ly-stage neu­rotech entre­pre­neurs receive award by The Ontario Brain Insti­tute (OBI)
  • Com­ing soon near you: Smart­phones, fridges and cars with emo­tion­al intelligence
  • 5 Must-Read Arti­cles, and an Online Course, to Help Chil­dren with ADHD
  • Mea­sur­ing phys­i­o­log­i­cal responses–including brain activity–to design stim­u­lat­ing, “con­scious” cities

Upcoming Events

  • Brain Health Chal­lenge by MIT Solve (Sub­mis­sions due August 1st)
  • Brain­Fu­tures 2017: Sep­tem­ber 6–7th in Wash­ing­ton, DC
  • 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017)

__________

Final­ly, you may want to Test your Brain and Mind with these 9 Clas­sic Opti­cal Illu­sions 🙂

 

Have a great summer!

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, artificial intelligence, autism, autism spectrum disorder, brain-enhancement, Brain-health, Brain-Plasticity, BrainFutures, cognitive-decline, Cognitive-Training, dementia, digital age, digital health, Facebook, FDA, Gingko-Biloba, machine-learning, Mental-Health, Mindstrong, MIT Solve, neuroimaging, neuropsychiatric, Ontario Brain Institute, Rythm, Savonix, smartphones

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