From Smartphones to Social Media by Mark Carrier

Author:Mark Carrier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO

DECISION-MAKING

When functioning well, our brains provide the mental processing that leads to good decision-making. Inhibition, for one—one of the key executive functions—is critical to decision-making. Inhibition allows us to suppress impulsive thoughts and ideas that might lead to poor decisions. Sometimes, it is important for us to suppress short-term desires over long-term plans that are healthier for us. For instance, when deciding whether to stay up late and play games on a school night, inhibition keeps us from going for the fun alternative of gaming and helps us focus on the long-term gains of getting a good night’s sleep. According to the known architecture of human cognition, decision-making is a key function that is so attention-demanding that it limits our ability to multitask: only one decision can be made at a time, according to the wiring of our brains. Psychologists learned decades ago that people could not perform two simple tasks simultaneously without one of those tasks being delayed or postponed. Through laboratory experimentation, scientists proposed the existence of a processing bottleneck in our psyches. The bottleneck prevents two decisions or selections of an action to be made at the same time. (Other limitations exist in mental processing that prevent, for example, paying attention to many objects at the same time.) Therefore, when people try to multitask in real life, as when driving a car and checking text messages, there are consequences such that they might not be aware of everything going on around them, they might have low quality decision-making, and their responses may be delayed. Because access to our brain’s decision-making mechanisms is limited to one decision at a time, the cognitive control processes that operate using our executive functions must work to optimize what decisions get made. Think of decision-making, like working memory, as so precious to our thinking and behaving that our brain must control access to them and allocate them in a way that is best for our thoughts and behavior. In other words, the brain has processes that act as executives in charge of our psyche’s limited resources; hence, we have executive functions. If one thinks of the entire history of the human race, then it makes sense that cognitive control would evolve in the brain in order to manage these limited resources. This would promote survival in a harsh world. This is a good example that researchers have given that shows how important it is to suppress impulsive thoughts before they influence our decisions: Let’s say that you are driving your car and you have your smartphone in your pocket. If a text message is received, your phone may buzz through the vibrate function on the phone. If you don’t immediately suppress the thought of checking your phone, then your brain will begin to evaluate the message. For instance, you might begin to wonder who is sending the message and what the message might be about. This evaluation process has a good chance of leading to you actually checking the message while you are driving, a highly dangerous decision and action.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.