Current Events – Page 41 – The View From Sari's World

Last Sunday, The Guardian ran an article that grabbed my attention. It’s been on my mind all week. The article “Why the modern world is bad for brain”, by Daniel Levitin discusses a topic that I’ve thought about for several years. I try not to be that proverbial chicken crying “the sky is falling”, but, it seems to me technology is changing us, even if it turns out to beonly our behavior.

The article discusses the effects multitasking has on the brain and how quickly we are becoming addicted to instant gratification and the stress this leads to, all thanks to modern technology.

Imagine that you are a prehistoric hunter. You spot a lion in the grass. Your brain is hardwired to focus on the grass and find patterns as part of the survival instinct. Once you correctly spot the lion your brain responds with “fight or flight”. Noting you are close to camp you run towards it, hoping to make it to safety before the lion takes chase. But wait. Is that Jane with a new pelt? You stop to admire the pelt and ask her how she got it to fit so tightly. This, sadly, is the last thing you do, as by now the lion has caught up and decided you are what’s for dinner.

Thankfully we no longer have to watch for predators in the grass, but we do have to admit, in some cases multitasking can get us killed. Texting and driving in the United States has led to enough deaths that the practice is now outlawed in many states. We think we can multitask but the truth is, we are not hardwired to do so. As we learned from the story above, focusing on one task at a time was a survival trait passed down from generation to generation. Those who lacked this trait usually did not live long enough to procreate.

In preparation for this article I read several studies concerning multitasking in the modern world. I cannot say I understand them all, and would defer to my science friends to help for help, but it does seem that studies suggest we are changing the hard-wire of our frontal cortex. We may be damaging our Executive functions.

Our Executive functions consist of advanced mental skills that help the brain organize and act on information. These skills allow people to plan, organize, prioritize, pay attention and get started on tasks. They also assist us with past information and experiences to solve current problems. If there is one area of the brain we don’t want to damage, this is it.

As Levitin points out in his article:

Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife–like appliances that include a dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar, voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight. They’re more powerful and do more things than the most advanced computer at IBM corporate headquarters 30 years ago. And we use them all the time, part of a 21st-century mania for cramming everything we do into every single spare moment of downtime. We text while we’re walking across the street, catch up on email while standing in a queue – and while having lunch with friends, we surreptitiously check to see what our other friends are doing. At the kitchen counter, cosy and secure in our domicile, we write our shopping lists on smartphones while we are listening to that wonderfully informative podcast on urban beekeeping.

And, may I point out, it’s not just our smartphone that causes all this multitasking mania. How many are willing to admit that right now there are several tabs open on the computer? On an average day I have three. Not bad considering I know people who have more than one homepage, so that when they fire up their laptop 10 pages queue up automatically. We jump back and forth between Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. all while watching TV or listening to music. Our ability to stay focused on one thing, one subject, drains away as we delude ourselves into thinking this type of behavior has no effect on our brain.

Levitin cites a study done by Glenn Wilson, a professor of psychology. His research found that being in a situation where you are trying to concentrate on a task, and an email is sitting unread in your inbox, can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points. I don’t know if I can afford to lose 10 points. What this study suggests, is just knowing we have e-mail causes us to break our concentration. We think we are not multitasking, yet just knowing we have information at our finger tips leads to stress. Do I open the e-mail? What if it is important? How should I prioritize my time? If this stresses us out, imagine what we are subconsciously doing to ourselves knowing we have access to all kinds of instant gratification and information? How many times have you switched back and forth from Twitter to Facebook because you want to make sure you haven’t missed anything?

Yesterday was National Readathon Day. Thanks to Random House, January 25 was a good excuse to unplug and read a book. With The Guardian article in mind, this is what I did. Oh, I will admit Sunday morning I caught up on my blog reading, but that was it. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Huffington Post, just me and a good Carl Sagan book.

It was easier than I thought it would be. In fact, by choosing to stay off the computer, my need to connect to others, to see what was going on in the world vanished. My mind was focused on my book and nothing else. I wasn’t distracted by a Twitter argument over whether the terms dialect and language are interchangeable. I wasn’t distracted by the need to know what my friends were doing at any given moment. My brain was focused on one task, and one task only. It was relaxing, and I found that the day seemed to go by slower. I didn’t look up from a computer screen a suddenly realize it was 5pm. I enjoyed the day for what it was. Quiet, calming, and thankfully, no lions, as I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

So here is an experiment I’m going to do on myself. I am going to focus on one aspect of the Internet at a time. It started with this article. Unlike my usual habit of web surfing pre-article writing, I ignored my e-mail. Ignored all social media and instead, opened up pages for citing purposes only. Once done, I will focus on one site at a time. No more multi-open pages, no more going back and forth and certainly no more TV and Internet. For one week it will be one or another. I want to see if there is any difference in my stress level or ability to really focus on what is in front of me. At work I will not look at and try not to think about my e-mail while reading contracts. I will instead turn off the notification bell and dedicate certain hours for my e-mail correspondence. We will have to see how well this goes over with my co-workers. Which leads nicely to part 2.

In part 2, I’ll go over some of our social norms that modern technology is changing and how this too is leading to everyday stress and anxiety.

My long time readers are aware of my complete distain for pseudoscience. I’ve talked about it in the past. If there is one thing I loathe about the Internet, it is how easily and quickly junk “science” is passed off as legitimist science. Anyone can create a website, post suspect articles and call it a “news” site. Far too many people fall prey to carefully constructed crap, designed to do nothing more than bolster support for personal opinions. Take the site, “Natural News” for example. When we hear the word news, we assume the information given has been researched and fact checked. “News”, to casual readers is something that is reliable and legitimate. But a careful review of the authors of” Natural News” exposes the dirty truth. They are average people making outrages claims.

The author of “The amazing benefits of drinking raw milk“ is no scientist, though she does a good job of constructing what looks like a scientific article on raw milk. Unfortunately she fails to consider these “benefits” are the same as pasteurized milk, minus the possible contaminates found in raw milk. Her credentials? Wife, Mother of 8, and Grandmother of 2
Jo is a 41 year old home educator who has always gravitated toward a natural approach. Yes, a woman who homeschooled her kids, is writing “news” articles and handing out medical advice.

Normally I shy away from pseudoscience. A good eye roll usually shrugs off my displeasure at yet another “science” based claim. I just sigh and move on. But at some point we have to stop ignoring all of this. As Carl Sagan points out over and over in his book, The Demon-Hunted World, the more we allow ourselves to be deluded by pseudoscience, the closer we move back into the dark ages. It is not stupidity that will kill us, it is our ignorance of ourselves.

So with that in mind, it’s time to take a stand against pseudoscience. It’s time to call out BS for what it is. The more ridicules the claim, the more pushback it deserves. This one is for the ladies. Men, I suggest you stop reading now. Seriously, stop. We are going to talk about lady parts and the “cure” for monthly problems. Still here? Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Yesterday, as I scrolled through my Twitter feed I saw a title and link that caught my breath. At first I thought I read it incorrectly. Then, as it dawned on me what I read was accurate I couldn’t help but clink on the link. Surely this was a joke, or a parody on Cosmo. “Steaming Your Vagina” is the title of the link to an article written by someone who obviously has no idea how the body works, or how volatile oil extraction works. Here’s the claim:

When the herbs are placed in the hot water, their medicinal properties, including volatile oils, are released and carried to the surface of your skin, and to the inside of the vagina, where they are absorbed into the bloodstream and into to the uterus. The herbal steam increases circulation, thins mucus, and cleanses the entire reproductive system, allowing it to shed unnecessary membranes and build-up. The results are varied, and amazing.

Picture it ladies. You’re at a loss as to what to do about your monthly cramps, craving for chocolate and binge-watching the Lifetime Network. Oh, if only there was a natural way to cure this! Well you are in luck because the author of “Steaming your Vagina” has uncovered an ancient cure. It’s like a facial for your most sacred parts. All you have to do is squat lady-like over a steamy bowl of herbs. Oh joyous day!

There is so much BS in this article, I’m almost at loss as where to begin. It would take pages to explain how oil extraction works, and even more pages to explain how chemistry works and why steam is not at all a viable means of getting anything into your blood stream, so I will cover only the most obvious points and then share links for further reading.

Here is a link to how oils are extracted. There are several ways, but the one to keep in mind does mention steam. This must be the method the author was thinking of as she wrote her article. Too bad she did not fully research this method, because in order to capture the oil, a closed system is required. The oil must change its molecular structure a couple times before it becomes true “essential” oil. In order to do this, the herbs must reach the boiling point, and stay boiling for the extraction to work. So ladies, get out a hotplate, pour some water and herbs into a pan, wait for the concoction to boil, and then squat over the boiling pan. Yes, you read correctly. In order to “capture” any and all essential oils, you must be over a boiling pan of water. Once the water begins to cool, the oil no longer breaks free of the plant’s membranes, making the process pointless, and your afternoon of personal papering a waste of time.

Now, let’s suppose you grin and bear it, all in the name of science. Now let us suppose some of the oil molecules break down so that they are light enough to travel by steam up to the targeted area and reconstitutes as oil as it hits the targeted area. Is there a chance the oil will make it into your bloodstream? Ah, no.

Here is an article from the CDC on what it takes for chemicals to be absorbed through the skin into the bloodstream. Bottom line, it is very rare for a chemical, or in our case oil molecules, to be absorbed into the bloodstream. If it were as simple as rubbing something onto our skin, just think of how unnecessary hypodermic needles would be! Doctors could simply rub a vaccination in. Our skin has built in defense mechanisms that keep chemicals out of our bodies. In fact, in order for anything to reach our bloodstream science is involved. This includes transdermal medication patches. These types of medicine require formulation specifically for this purpose, requiring chemical engineering to create a molecule that is soluble in skin, and small enough to penetrate and absorb into the body.

But, let’s imagine, the oil as steam, reconstitutes itself as oil and wiggles its way past the skin’s three barriers and enters the bloodstream, and just for giggles, gets past the white blood cells, whose main function is to kill off foreign bodies. We are talking super oil at this point! You might want to start asking yourself what exactly you put into that pot of boiling water, and if it’s really a good idea to have it floating around in your bloodstream?

Now here comes the real magic. Once the oil reaches the vaginal bloodstream it will be taken to the uterus vein. Once in the vein, the oil must know to release itself into the uterus walls in order to for its medicinal properties to take effect. What medical properties, you might ask? Well, that’s just the thing pseudoscience does not want you asking. There are no explanations as to what herbs work best and why. There are no medicinal mentions of any kind. This is, forgive the pun, smoke steam and mirrors. Oh the benefits are given, but no science. In fact, you may use the herb or flower of your choosing; apparently they are all the same. As it is with all pseudoscience, all BS and not a thought is given as to how real science works.

So the next time someone offers you a “medical” tip, take care that you are not being sold snake oil. Your lady parts will thank you.

Category: Current Events

Debunking pseudoscience – ladies only edition

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