Hosted by Corpus Curiosum, an online lecture series catered to early career researchers and designed to stimulate critical thinking in Neuroscience.
Life in the 21st Century cannot be imagined without the use of technology. Moreover, there is a specific type of technology that seems ubiquitous ౼to some extent౼ across countries, socioeconomic backgrounds, and age: “everyone” possesses a smartphone. Despite the transversal and daily use of smart devices in different age-range populations for a vast array of activities (related to work, health, leisure, culture, social interaction, etc.), scientific literature seems to be focused on the detrimental effects of ‘smartphone overuse’ per se, which could be seen as a quite simplistic view that neglects the complex and varied nature of smart device usage. In this talk, I would present some of the inherent challenges that measuring the effects of technology on our brain (in relation to behavior, cognition and emotional states) comprise, trying to stimulate some discussion about how and whether we should try to categorize effects/changes observed in our brains as positive or negative, while the actual neuroscientific techniques and interpretations about the brain keep evolving at the same time we use them to answer our experimental questions.