GUEST HOST: DEREK MCGINTY
A woman uses her smart phone as she walks on 47th Street November 13, 2014 in New York. AFP PHOTO/Don Emmert (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)
We all do it. Walking down the street–a quick check of the phone to see who emailed. Watching television–why not send out a tweet, too. Sitting at dinner with family–it will take only a second to read that text. Even when we know we should resist the temptation, it’s so hard to ignore technology. We pay for it in half-completed tasks, near accidents, and disjointed conversations. Why is this? It turns out our brains are not very good at driving away distraction, and technology has only aggravated it.
Did you know the blue light from your phones ‘fight’ or stop melatonin (Melatonin is a hormone that helps you fall asleep.) So when you look at your phone before or while in bed, you may be resetting your melatonin for ‘awake mode’, making it harder to sleep properly. Suggestion: stop looking at your phone 30 minutes or more before bed and don’t look at it until you wake up in the morning!
Guest host Derek McGinty talks to neuroscientist Dr. Adam Gazzaley and psychologist Dr. Larry Rosen about our ancient brains in a high-tech world.
Guests
- Dr. Adam Gazzaley professor of neurology, physiology, and psychiatry at UC San Francisco; founding director, the Neuroscience Imaging Center; director, the Gazzaley Lab, a cognitive neuroscience laboratory.
- Dr. Larry Rosen professor and past chair of the psychology department, California State University, Dominguez Hills
Tagged: cell phone, insomnia, melatonin, phone, sleep
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