GLEN CANYON NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Utah — Todd Braver emerges from a
tent nestled against the canyon wall. He has a slight tan, except for a
slim pale band around his wrist.
For the first time in three days in the wilderness, Mr. Braver is not wearing his watch. “I forgot,” he says.
It is a small thing, the kind of change many vacationers notice in
themselves as they unwind and lose track of time. But for Mr. Braver and
his companions, these moments lead to a question: What is happening to
our brains?
Mr. Braver, a psychology professor at Washington University
in St. Louis, was one of five neuroscientists on an unusual journey.
They spent a week in late May in this remote area of southern Utah,
rafting the San Juan River, camping on the soft banks and hiking the
tributary canyons.
It was a primitive trip with a sophisticated goal: to understand how
heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think
and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects.
Cellphones do not work here, e-mail is inaccessible and laptops have
been left behind. It is a trip into the heart of silence — increasingly
rare now that people can get online even in far-flung vacation spots.
As they head down the tight curves the San Juan has carved from ancient
sandstone, the travelers will, not surprisingly, unwind, sleep better
and lose the nagging feeling to check for a phone in the pocket. But the
significance of such changes is a matter of debate for them.
Some of the scientists say a vacation like this hardly warrants much
scrutiny. But the trip’s organizer, David Strayer, a psychology
professor at the University of Utah, says that studying what happens when we step away from our devices and rest our brains — in particular, how attention, memory and learning are affected — is important science.
“Attention is the holy grail,” Mr. Strayer says.
“Everything that you’re conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget, depends on it.”
Echoing other researchers, Mr. Strayer says that understanding how
attention works could help in the treatment of a host of maladies, like attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia
and depression. And he says that on a day-to-day basis, too much
digital stimulation can “take people who would be functioning O.K. and
put them in a range where they’re not psychologically healthy.”
The quest to understand the impact on the brain of heavy technology use —
at a time when such use is exploding — is still in its early stages. To
Mr. Strayer, it is no less significant than when scientists
investigated the effects of consuming too much meat or alcohol.
But stepping away is easier for some than others. The trip begins with a
strong defense of digital connectedness, a debate that revolves around
one particularly important e-mail.
On the Road
The five scientists on the trip can be loosely divided into two groups: the believers and the skeptics.
The believers are Mr. Strayer and Paul Atchley, 40, a professor at the University of Kansas who studies teenagers’ compulsive use of cellphones. They argue that heavy technology use can inhibit deep thought and cause anxiety, and that getting out into nature can help. They take pains in their own lives to regularly log off.
The skeptics use their digital gadgets without reservation. They are not
convinced that anything lasting will come of the trip — personally or
scientifically.
This group includes the fast-talking Mr. Braver, 41, a brain imaging
expert; Steven Yantis, 54, the tall and contemplative chairman of the
psychological and brain sciences department at Johns Hopkins, who
studies how people switch between tasks; and Art Kramer, 57, a
white-bearded professor at the University of Illinois who has gained attention for his studies of the neurological benefits of exercise.
Also on the trip are a reporter and a photographer, and Richard Boyer, a
quiet outdoorsman and accomplished landscape painter, who helps Mr.
Strayer lead the journey.
Among the bright academic lights in the group, Mr. Kramer is the most
prominent. At the time of the trip he was about to take over a
$300,000-a-year position as director of the Beckman Institute, a leading
research center at the University of Illinois with around 1,000
scientists and staff workers and tens of millions of dollars in grant
financing.
He is also intense personally — someone who has been challenging himself
since early in life; he says he left home when he was a teenager,
became an amateur boxer and, later, flew airplanes, rock-climbed and
smashed his knee in a “high-speed skiing accident.”
They are driving six hours from Salt Lake City to the river, and they
stop at a camping store for last-minute supplies. Mr. Kramer waits out
front, checking e-mail on his BlackBerry Curve. This sets off a debate
between the believers and skeptics.
Back in the car, Mr. Kramer says he checked his phone because he was
waiting for important news: whether his lab has received a $25 million
grant from the military to apply neuroscience to the study of
ergonomics. He has instructed his staff to send a text message to an
emergency satellite phone the group will carry with them.
Mr. Atchley says he doesn’t understand why Mr. Kramer would bother. “The
grant will still be there when you get back,” he says.