The 21st century will arguably go down in history as the biggest ever experiment in human development. The rise of technology has become one the most profound revolutions of our generation, it is ever present throughout our homes and in our lives. With every revolution there are winners and there are losers, will the biggest loser of the tech revolution be the human brain?

Have you ever spent hours upon end, scrolling only to find yourself just scrolling through stuff you've seen before?
Have you ever reached for your phone to answer emails whilst in a queue at a shop?
Have you ever watched a video on Youtube only to find yourself watching the next autoplay, then the next then the next?
Have you ever spent hours in an immersive game?
Have you ever reached for a device to do one thing, and ended up spending far more time than originally planned?
Have you ever felt the feel good chemicals that come with checking notifications across all of your apps?

If you answered yes to some of the above, you most certainly won’t be alone as these are an increasingly familiar feature of modern life.

Matt Richtel is a New York Times writer, he has been a whistle-blower and investigated the harmful effects of digital technology on the human brain , claiming that few have studied the science on this as closely as he has.

On an interview on The Unexplained Podcast, Richtel explained that with every revolution, alongside progress, there are other effects that may be to our detriment.

"The advent of the car led to multiple deaths on the road but was nonetheless a very big form of progress” Richtel explains.

“The industrialisation of food led to more calories to more people but it also led to junk food which has created obesity."

We are only now in the very earliest stages of understanding about how the incessant use of digital technology impacts a brain that developed over millions of years without such technology.

Richtel elaborates that digital devices are the ultimate neurological draw, using an analogy about our ancestors to paint the picture;

"Imagine yourself as a cave person and you're staring at a fire and you get a tap on the shoulder are you able to ignore the tap on the shoulder, are you able to ignore the tap? Is it opportunity or a threat? Is it somebody warning of a lava flow? Is it a potential mate? Is it about food? When your phone buzzes, it is the functional equivalent of a tap on the shoulder from anyone, anywhere in the world. You are ...fundamentally duty-bound to check it. This is how compelling your device is."

So our brains are oriented towards novel bursts of information, particularly when they may be about us. The problems start when your device becomes more than just a dumb but useful machine, it's when the device turns you into its slave.

It won't be a surprise to many that Richtel believes that some of the associated problems effect:

Your attention
Focus
Depth of thinking
and cause neurochemical overload.

The suggestion appears to be that constant notifications and task-switching may be contributing to negative effects on the brain.

The truth is that humans are really bad at multi-tasking and that switching from task to task has a 'cost' that can lead to increased errors, reduce productivity and increased cortisol (a potent stress hormone). So if you suffer stress and anxiety, chances are this task switching isn’t going to help.

Are your social media apps harming your neurons?

Then there's the neurochemical impact device use brings.

Social media apps are hardwired to introduce you to novel social information creating a little burst of the 'reward' or 'feel-good' brain chemical – dopamine.

Not only does this burst of dopamine create an imperative to continue using the app (i.e. addiction) but it also continually makes your brain experience the feeling of reward and motivation, ultimately becoming dependent on digital interactions vs human interaction. Could we be getting lazier as a result? Scary stuff.

Lack of regulation means that tech companies have free reign to ensure that their apps and websites drive this content into your eyes and ears, and up until recently they have had no reason not to.

It's not all bad news however.

In 2018, Instagram implemented the "You're all caught up" function into their app to prevent 'overgramming'. This feature came about after the message of the Time Well Spent movement began spreading throughout the tech scene.

The leader of this movement Tristan Harris, a former Google employee, began thinking about the negative effects of device usage when he observed how often Google's products and services compelled users to check their email and smartphone notifications.

Harris believes that tech companies have "downgraded" humanity by shortening attention spans, promoting vanity, creating smartphone addiction, triggering rage-fuelled online disputes and polarising political opinion.

So what can we do about these negative effects?

Well, we won't be throwing our phones away anytime soon so we need to be realistic. If you’re as interested as we are in wrestling back some control of our lives from our devices, here are some of our tips;