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I often think back to what it must've been like being a photographer before the birth of the Internet, the social media craze, and the hunt for likes, shares, and follows. Photography was less convoluted before the dawn of the digital age, with specialist magazines and museum and art gallery submissions showcasing only the cream of the crop. Browsing through old magazines and reading the articles, it's clear that the top-tier photographers stood out amongst the rest of the crowd for their raw skill in their art form. Their images meant something to many of those who took the time to stop and look at it for longer than two seconds.

In modern days, things are quite different when looking at the multitude of platforms available to freely publish your own work. With the seemingly slow death of the magazine industry and the huge number of people using online image platforms, it's almost as if the images we post online have become lacking in substance. Is it because we're just exposed to so much more?

I can't remember any of the images I just liked on Instagram about an hour ago, yet I seem to recall images I saw in books when I was younger that have managed to stand the test of time. Was I exposed to less imagery back then? Is it all becoming so convoluted now because of the digital age shoving images in our faces every chance it gets?

While we desensitize ourselves due to the sensory overload in the form of a million of images per day, the modern-day digital age has also given everyone with access to a computer or mobile phone a voice. And while it's a great form of communication, it's mirrored by what can be seen by some as an almost narcissistic need to be heard. Are the days of studying and constructively criticizing photography as an art form truly gone and replaced by some 14-year-old kid with bad acne, endlessly trolling Instagram and Facebook pages?

What has this done to our favorite art form? While the world is moving toward an ever-growing " PC" way of life, are photographers getting scared of posting images of a possible controversial nature online? If images of Viet Cong prisoners being shot in the head at point blank range or self-immolating monks were posted online today, the image would be spammed with a thousand comments on how this isn't right and how dare this photographer post images of this nature, before ultimately being reported and taken down. After that, no one would bat an eye. But remember what an impact those images had when you first saw them years ago? Nobody back then gathered their pitchforks and torches before heading off to go lynch the photographer.

And while I don't believe we'll ever see legendary photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, or Ansel Adams again, I do believe we will witness an evolution of our on-screen aliases trending across the globe for a few hours or days before another photographer creates something different or slightly more controversial (these days, controversy seems to only be measured by the amount of Photoshop being used on magazine covers). Are all of us perhaps becoming as disposable as the cameras we once shot with?

Yet somehow, something inside me still clings on to the belief that photography as an art form will prevail as it has over so many decades.

As somber and negative as this article may sound, it's not without a glimmer of light; the access to social media has also given everyone access to showcase their images to the world. No longer are we exposed to just a few amazing photographers around the globe, but we now have a choice to follow a few million photographers and their photographs, giving us the opportunity to learn faster from the photographers we view online and share our knowledge to those eager to learn. It helps us connect with like-minded creative individuals in order to share ideas quicker, work together, and source new clients. It's basically become the modern day word-of-mouth. Thus, you won't see many photographers packing their gear away to gather dust in a basement cabinet somewhere and take up accounting. Instead, we all learn to adapt to our ever-evolving world.

So as I'm finishing this article, I'm preparing to head out to the coast for a little holiday. My camera's batteries are charged, lenses cleaned, and sensor dust-free. My camera and I are ready for another adventure ready to be posted on my Instagram profile.

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Is Social Media the Death of Creativity or the Birth of a New Creative Era?

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I often think back to what it must've been like being a photographer before the birth of the Internet, the social media craze, and the hunt for likes, shares, and follows. Photography was less convoluted before the dawn of the digital age, with specialist magazines and museum and art gallery submissions showcasing only the cream of the crop.

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I always see people who express their doubts about social media, claiming that we spend too much time on our phones and disconnecting ourselves from the "real world". Statements like these piss me off. We human beings tend to be skeptical of everything that is new, unknown, and might pose a threat to ourselves. We prefer our daily routine to be as predictable as possible because it's safe and we know it works. Some people even knowingly disapprove of everything for their own profit of distinction, which, as Pierre Bourdieu would say, is "[...] the profit that flows from the difference, the gap, that separates us from what is common. " In other words, some people want to stand out of the crowd simply by criticising what is common, even though they might not necessarily be completely unanimous with the point of view they are representing.

Recently, however, Jeremy "Jereminho" Park made a claim about social media in one of his posts that actually sparked my interest. He indirectly criticized that social media was the cause why so many people copy each other's tricks in our sport (or art form, or whatever you want to name it) called football freestyle. In his most recent post, he further mentions:

The art that is actually produced by someone is immediately taken and set as a trend or something a freestyler wants to learn/do.

To put it differently, the few true creative minds out there are being exploited and their tricks are worn out by the masses, thus discrediting the efforts made by its initial creators. Jereminho, after isolating himself for several months from all social platforms, claims that he restored his true passion for freestyle football by exploring and trying out new things like when he first started to freestyle, unaffected by any other source of influence. I'm neither saying that his approach about social media is right or wrong, I actually believe that it's a good idea to distance yourself from it every now and then because we're blinded by the constant stream of input hindering ourselves to come up with innovative creations. It worked for Jereminho so I believe other people might benefit from this approach as well. What I'm trying to highlight, however, is that it is easy, almost tempting to criticise something that might show a few negative aspects. In this very example, however, at least from my point of view, the positive aspects of social media outweigh the negative ones. Let me clarify.

First and foremost, social media gave us exposure. We have several platforms to spread the word about our sport and day after day I see huge engagement and interest in freestyle football - all over the world.

Another positive aspect about social media is emphasized by the fact that everybody can take ideas from as many different people as possible and create their own unique style. It is true for example, as Jereminho claims in his post, that social media makes it easier for everyone to bite each other and I'm also in full agreement that there's plenty of freestylers who have never even thought about creating their own move or transition. However, you can't be fully innovative with every trick you create. I believe that, in order to be creative, you need to take from other people. You actually need to get your inspiration from somewhere and this is where I'm in disagreement with Jereminho.

Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which you grew up in a closed room, isolated from every outer influence of freestyle football. You've never seen anybody do any tricks with a football - all you've seen since your birth would be that room and a football. One day, an omniscient person enters the room and explains, quite briefly, what freestyle football is, and afterwards instructs you to come up with all the tricks that exist in the world outside of your room, by executing them or simply writing them down. Do you think it is possible, even if you'd be sitting there for 10 years straight, to come up even with 10% of the tricks that exist today, all by yourself? I personally think not.

Most of the tricks people come up with in freestyle nowadays are based, in some way or the other, on other tricks that have already been created, or on other art forms, like b-boying, freerunning or gymnastics. Even if you are convinced that you came up with something completely by yourself, you might have been influenced by some other freestyler who has done something similar but you forgot about it afterwards, you might've seen Jackie Chan do a cool move in a movie and you're trying to replicate that move with a football, or it is possible that you've seen a picture, painting or even a piece of music that lead you to create a certain move. Everything is a copy of something else, in some shape or the other, in freestyle football just like in technology, music or other art forms.

In the music industry, it's hard not to see how many artists are "sampling" from other music pieces. Sampling, for those who are not familiar with the term, is the process of taking a segment of a song and implementing it in a new song that you produce. On the Ted Radio Hour called What Is Original? (which I highly recommend that you listen to), Guy Raz mentions the song La Di Da Di by Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh, which was released in 1984. That song is said to be the most sampled song of all time and segments of it were used in hundreds of songs over the years. How crazy is that? Well-known artists like The Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg, The Notorious B.I.G., Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Kanye West and many more have used samples of this particular song in their own creations.

This does not mean, however, that everybody is a copycat and that there's no originality or creativity. The process of creating simply implicates taking something from somebody else and making it your own by altering it in some shape or the other. In some cases, the "original" piece stays undoubtedly recognisable. If you take many segments from different individuals, however, it might become impossible to spot the original pieces of work, thus making it incredibly difficult to draw the line between what's innovative and what is considered plagiarism. In order to be original, it's essential to reshape the initial creation to such extend that it becomes something fresh, something that can stand on its own.

In the world of football freestyle, you could apply this ideology to tricks such as Jordan Stall or Yosuke Stall, both tricks having been created by Jordan Meunier and Yosuke Yokota respectively, but based on which people create something new almost every second day. Strictly considered, these freestylers copy that particular move one-to-one, but they separate themselves from the initial inventors by building on it and reshaping it, thus making it their own. This is the beauty of innovation.

Elon Musk, multibillionaire, CEO and cofounder of Tesla, removed all of Tesla's patents and joined the open source movement. He basically put Tesla's technology out there for everyone who desires, in good faith, to use it. But why? Elon Musk simply wanted to spark innovation since he knew it would lead to faster progress in technology, thus benefitting other companies and the entire world in general. I love this concept and I think people in our community should be less selfish about the tricks they have created. It's easy to get offended. Personally speaking, I'd say that I'm rather flattered if somebody uses my own creation, , for example. When Yosuke was asked by Daniel Dennehy about what he thinks about the fact that so many people nowadays are using his creation, he said that he was honoured. I believe that every freestyler out there, deep inside their mind, knows whether they've taken a certain trick from somebody else or not, and they will never be fully satisfied with themselves or find inner peace if they pretend that they've come up with that certain tricks that somebody else initially invented.

Then again, I can comprehend why people want to point out that they have created a certain move (when somebody else uploads that trick to social media for example), but I think we should see it from a different perspective. We shouldn't consider ourselves as victims of theft or plagiarism, quite the contrary. We should be proud that somebody else thought that our creation was worthy enough to be copied and redone! After all, when we innovate, we take something we love and we built on it. Nobody copies an ugly trick or samples a terrible piece of music. People take what they like and respect, because it's something special, something that they think is unique and beautiful.

Of course, people have different motivations about why they practice football freestyle, some do it solely out of amusement and don't have any specific goals, others do it to free their heads from an exhausting day at their job - and that's completely fine. Stop being offended that people chose to practice our art form for different reasons and want to pursue different goals. Everyone who choses to be innovative in our culture, however, actively shapes the world of football freestyle as it is, and if that's not something that tickles your mind and makes you create something that hasn't been done before, I don't know what does. With all the different social media platforms out there, it couldn't be easier to get inspired and take ideas from other people. From time to time, take a step back, remember where different tricks came from and ask yourself if they are really yours - and if that's not the case, give credit where credit is due.

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I always see people who express their doubts about social media, claiming that we spend too much time on our phones and disconnecting ourselves from the "real world". Statements like these piss me off. We human beings tend to be skeptical of everything that is new, unknown, and might pose a threat to ourselves.

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What drives your creative work? Money? Fame? Success? If you're an artist, you're probably answering "no way"- meaning drives you. Finding purpose or making your life meaningful is your deepest priority, even if it's not the priority you act on most. (Let's face it, if living a meaningful life consisted of following an indubitable recipe, we'd all do it. But it doesn't.)

Whether subtly or profoundly, we all experience this drive for meaning. And though the cause of this drive seems unidentifiable, it's by searching for it that we add meaning to our lives. Art is just one way we undertake this search. The difficulty, though, with making art is remaining honest, and often our truest desires get supplanted with the desires of others. If you're struggling to find artistic fulfillment, it may have nothing to do with your skill set or methodology, and everything to do with unquestioned motivations.

For some time now my own work (writing) has felt polluted. I've struggled to achieve a sense of honesty, so I recently began exploring why. What I found is an intoxicating ideology and social media as the dominant carrier of it. Together they chloroformed me, stifling my creativity and sapping the pleasure from my work.

Social media amplifies one message that can hinder the artist: the idea that you can do what you love and get paid-the American Dream. Of all possible payoffs in the land of opportunity there is none more enticing than that of getting paid to follow your bliss.

In recent years social media has reiterated this ideal, offering proof from authors, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, comedians, designers who have achieved success through Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook. Of course, "success" is a nebulous term. But let's agree here that it means financial comfort, because, more or less, we assume that if a person is doing what they enjoy and is financially comfortable then they must be exquisitely happy. So although art begins as some intuitive impulse or desire for expression or the exploration of meaning, when repeatedly exposed to the American Dream we begin making art with the goal of "succeeding." We conclude that if making art is enjoyable, then being recognized, appreciated, and paid for making it must be doubly enjoyable.

Suddenly that becomes the goal: recognition, adulation, payment, success. America's great ideal creeps into our unconscious even when we consciously oppose it. Where we once aimed for honest expression, we now chase falsities and wonder why we feel frustrated and alone. Our lust for happiness prevents us from seeing that happiness isn't necessarily found in the eternal promise of American capitalism. The signs of social media, if heeded, would point us over a cliff after the American Dream.

I'm targeting social media as the propellant of this ideology because they're the most infectious. With personalized news feeds, instant accessibility, and unmatched power to usurp the nucleus accumbens, social media makes other media look juvenile.

If we thought advertising was ubiquitous before, it is now omnipresent-and omniscient; advertisers know us. Because we pay for web services with data instead of dollars, our desires and fears, our tastes and distastes, are being marketed to. And if you have even a shred of artistic or entrepreneurial drive, you've noticed (and have probably been targeted with) this one hypnotic message:
"Follow your bliss, be who you are, do what makes you happy, live your life, and success can be yours."
Just submit your information to get started...

The American Dream has evolved. In my parents' day the promise entailed a pink stucco suburban home, Chevrolet in the driveway, and a modest retirement plan. In my youth the Dream advanced to include playmates and Lamborghinis. (MTV convinced me there was no better life than that of a rock star.) And though the Dream has always spun consumable goods as being the pathway to eternal bliss, recently it has become more ethereal. Today, the promise is one of spiritual and creative achievement, meaningful contribution, and an authentic life, with the assurance that you'll be permanently happy if you achieve it. The American Dream, much like the War on Terror, is a vaporous concept, open to any interpretation and pursuable without end. Consequently, it's also endlessly salable.

Maybe that's why the notion of authenticity has been criticized in recent years-because it's so easily propagandized. But haters are missing the point. The desire for authenticity is born of the desire for meaning; it is the spiritual goal of a secularized world. And striving for authenticity-aligning your life with your deepest, self-chosen values-is worthwhile, particularly when it comes to artistic endeavors. What deserves criticism is the song of Pollyanna capitalism. We have commoditized an elemental human drive, and we're all buying with subscriptions to apps and technologies and websites that promise to give us voice, help us make and sell our art, and become our bestest selves. But the more we repackage hope for self-actualization as the purchasable American Dream, the less hope there is.

I'm not trying to present a false dichotomy here. I recognize the utility of social media. And I confess that America's economic mobility enhances our opportunity to achieve our goals, artistic or otherwise. When you consider the world and its history, it's astounding when anyone is financially compensated for doing what they love. But doing creative work with the goal of being successful is not the same as making art. Aiming for and achieving success is called good business. Art, however, is not about business. It's about meaning, discovery, and personal growth. If we want our art to fulfill those drives, we must discard those for fame and fortune. Which, for most of us, means checking the influence of social media.

We make art to make ourselves. We perform our creative work to see whether we can become the person we believe we are capable of becoming. And we know we will fail. But it's that knowledge combined with the fortitude to explore and create anyway that results in artful living. And that is the reward. Any reward beyond that is, by definition, good fortune. In the end, art should be motivated by a desire to add something to the world.

What follows from our offerings must be left to the gods.

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Social Media are Distorting Your Creative Vision, and You Don't Even Know It

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What drives your creative work? Money? Fame? Success? If you're an artist, you're probably answering "no way"- meaning drives you. Finding purpose or making your life meaningful is your deepest priority, even if it's not the priority you act on most. (Let's face it, if living a meaningful life consisted of following an indubitable recipe, we'd all do it.

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How much time do you spend on social media? Research says 142 minutes per day

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Check out the chart to find out how much time does an individual spend on social media.

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J.T. Ellison, New York Times Bestselling Author

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You want to hear some hard truth?

Do you promise not to get mad at me? Promise?

Okay then. Here it is.

Yes, I know it's fun. Meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, discussing the price of tea in China with strangers, staffing up your mafia, finding out your Princess personality, etcetera, etcetera.

But every minute you spend on Facebook and Twitter (I'm not even going to try and list the gajillion other social networking sites available) is another minute you aren't writing, or reading, or nurturing your creative spirit.

The Muse is a delicate flower, a fickle Goddess. She must be treated with respect and dignity. She must be nurtured, given the proper nutrients: water, sunlight, fertilizer, a touch of love. If properly taken care of, she will reward you with great things: a bountiful garden of words, a cornucopia of ideas.

But if you neglect the Muse, she will forsake you.

And none of us want to be forsaken.

I read an essay last week that broke my heart. It was one writer's honest, true assessment of her burgeoning Twitter addiction. She openly admitted compromising her family time so she could spend hours a night talking to strangers on Twitter. Her online world became more important than her real one.

I see how easily that happens. Especially when you're a new writer, and networking is so vital to your future success. (I am so thankful Facebook and Twitter came along after I was already published.) A little encouragement-that tweet that gets retweeted, the blog entry that starts people talking, that link you sent that helps someone else-it's heady stuff. A classic, undeniable ego stroke, and for a lot of us, that's just plain intoxicating. (Yes, some of us not so new writers fall into the Twitter trap too...)
I can't answer that question for you.
You may want to ask yourself some hard questions though. Namely, how much time are you really spending online?

Can't answer that offhand? Spend a week keeping a log of all your online activity. Not just Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads. Track your email consumption, your blogging, your blog reading, your Yahoo groups, your aimless surfing and your necessary research.

Be honest. Don't cheat.

Add that time up at the end of the week and take a candid, truthful look at the results. I guarantee you'll be surprised at how much time the Internet takes.

Then ask yourself these questions:

1. Is the Internet as a whole compromising my writing time?

2. Am I reading less because I'm spending more time online?

3. Why am I doing this?

4. Am I reaching out to strangers because I'm not feeling the same sort of support at home?

5. Am I lonely? Blocked? Frustrated?

Because here's the heart of the matter. Writers? Our job is to write. And I don't mean pithy status updates and 140 character gems that astonish the world. I mean create. I mean writing stories. I mean taking all that energy and time you're spending online playing and refocusing it into your work.

You know why it's so easy to say that and so hard to back it up with results? Because Twitter and Facebook are FUN!

And you're talking to other writers, so you can sort of kind of tell yourself that this is really just research, background. You're learning, right? You're connecting with your fans, with your readers, with your heroes. Very, very cool stuff.

Listen, if you get inspired by social networking, if watching successful authors launch successful campaigns helps spur you on to greatness, fabulous. I have been greatly inspired by some posts, links and attitudes on Twitter. I think it's so important to try and have a positive experience out there in the world, and I follow people who exude positivity, who are following the path I want to follow.

But if you're forsaking your Muse, taking the easy way out, then you have to do a bit of self-examination and decide if it's really worth it.

I am "friends" with people who are online every single time I open my computer and go to the sites. And I can't help but wonder - when are they working? When are they feeding the Muse?

An editor is going to be impressed with your finished manuscript, submitted on time. The jury is still out on whether they're impressed that you can Tweet effectively or that you've rekindled that friendship with the cheerleader who always dissed you in school.

The thing about social networking is a little goes a long way. I love Twitter. It's my number-one news source. I follow interesting people, I've made new friends, and more importantly, I've gained new readers. It's a tremendous tool for me. But I've also (hopefully) mastered the art of Twitter and Facebook. I can glance at my Tweetdeck, see what I need to see, read what I need to read, then move along.

Facebook, on the other hand, became a problem for me last year, so I gave it up for Lent.

I spent six weeks only checking it on Tuesdays and Fridays. The first two weeks were hell. I was missing out! Everyone was on there having fun except me.

And then it got better.

At the end of the six weeks, I added things up. I wrote 60,000 words during my enforced Facebook vacation.
That was enough of an indicator to me that it was taking time away from my job, which is to write.

Now Facebook is a breeze. I've separated out my friends, the people I actually interact with daily, so I can pop in one or twice a day, check on them, then keep on trucking. I've set my preferences so I'm not alerted to every tic and twitch of the people I'm friends with. I don't take quizzes or accept hugs. Ignore All has become my new best friend. Because really, as fun as it is to find out that I'm really the Goddess Athena, that aspect isn't enriching my life.

I read Steven Pressfield's THE WAR OF ART recently and was so struck by his thesis, that artists fight resistance every moment of every day, and the ones who are published (or sell their work, etc.) are the ones who beat the resistance back. Twitter, Facebook, the Internet in general, that's resistance. (And to clarify, resistance and procrastination aren't one and the same. Read the book. It's brilliant.)

For professional writers, the social networks are a necessary evil, and as such, they must be managed, just like every other distraction in our lives.

I still have my days when I find myself aimlessly surfing Twitter and Facebook, looking at what people are doing. Getting into conversations, playing. But I am much, much better at feeding my Muse. I allot time in my day to look at my social networks, but I allot much more time in my day to read. And most importantly, I have that sacred four hour stretch-twelve to four, five days a week-that is dedicated to nothing but putting words on paper.

There's another phenomenon happening. The social networks are eating into our reading time. Readers have their own resistance, their own challenges managing their online time.

Yes, there are plenty of readers who don't have Facebook or Twitter accounts, who may read this and laugh. But many of us do, and if we're being honest with ourselves, every minute spent conversing online is another minute we aren't reading.

I can't help but wonder if this is what will ultimately drive the trend toward ebooks, since one out of every three readers prefer to read electronically now.

One in three, folks. That's a large chunk of the market.

So how do you turn it off? How do you discipline yourself, walk away from the fun?

It's hard.

But what's more important? Writing the very best book you can possibly write, or taking a quiz about which Goddess you are?

Reading the top book on your teetering TBR stack, or reading what other people think about said book?

For writers, you have to set your priority, and every time your fingers touch the keyboard, that priority really should be writing. The rest will fall into place. I hypothesize that while the Internet is taking a chunk of reading time, most readers still read a great deal. Which means we need to keep up the machine to feed them, right?
MinimalMac 43 Folders Zen Habits Bloggity The Art of Non-Conformity The War of Art - Steven Pressfield The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life - Winifred Gallagher Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Does this post sound like you? Are you easily distracted? Frustrated because you can't seem to get a grip on things? There are a bunch of great tools out there to help you refocus your creative life. Here's a list of the websites and blogs that I've used over the past year to help me refocus mine.

Take fifteen minutes a day off your social networking and read one of these. I promise it will help you reprioritize your day.

Because really, what's the point in being a writer if you don't write?

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How Social Media Kills The Creative Spirit

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You want to hear some hard truth? Do you promise not to get mad at me? Promise? Okay then. Here it is. Yes, I know it's fun. Meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, discussing the price of tea in China with strangers, staffing up your mafia, finding out your Princess personality, etcetera, etcetera.

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Social media and creativity
Note: This post contains affiliate links.
Listen to the audio version or read the post below.

Don't worry, I'm not one of 'THOSE' people.

I'm not a social media killjoy. I love it and use it often, every day.

But recently, I've been exploring ways to decrease the time I spend waste on Facebook and Instagram (the platforms I use the most) by learning about the impact of social media usage on my brain.

I find that understanding how our brains work inspires me to WANT to change my behaviour. Knowing that I CAN change helps inspire me, too. And intrinsic motivation is the best place for change to come from, right? It's better than someone yelling at us to get off Facebook.

I was curious about the relationship between social media and creativity. And by this, I don't mean writing creative social media posts. I mean how social media affects our creativity, so I started researching.

What I found is that there is a feel-good neurohormone in our brain bringing us little bursts of joy. It's called dopamine. You might have heard the expression 'getting a little dopamine hit'.

So, what's wrong with a little joy? A lot, apparently. Those little dopamine hits via social media are killing our creativity.

Now, I'm not a scientist (and if you are, feel free to let me know anything I get wrong here in the comments and if you aren't, feel free to shut the hell up add meaningful comments to this post) but I'll do my best to interpret what I found.

What is dopamine?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, one of those chemicals that is responsible for transmitting signals in between the nerve cells (neurons) of the brain. When dopamine neurons become activated, they release dopamine.

Psychology Today
OK, so dopamine is like a courier in the brain, carrying important messages between neurons, nerves and other cells in our body.

It's produced in several areas of the brain and is released by the hypothalamus, which links our nervous system to our endocrine system.

Dopamine and social media

How does dopamine affect people?

The minute you take a drug, drink alcohol, smoke a cigarette if those are your poison, when you get a like on social media, all of those experiences produce dopamine, which is a chemical that's associated with pleasure.

When someone likes an Instagram post, or any content that you share, it's a little bit like taking a drug. As far as your brain is concerned, it's a very similar experience. Now the reason why is because it's not guaranteed that you're going to get likes on your posts. And it's the unpredictability of that process that makes it so addictive. If you knew that every time you posted something you'd get a 100 likes, it would become boring really fast.

Adam Alter, New York University professor and author of " Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked

I haven't read Alter's book. I'm afraid it will be like Allen Carr's seminal book, Easy Way to Quit Smoking and I'll end up wanting to delete all my social media accounts or deal with the thought of manipulative corporations behind them each time I take a dopamine hit. I'm looking at you, Facebook.

I wonder how much dopamine and ego are in partnership. And how much of this stuff the wealthy corporations behind successful social platforms know this. Very well, I assume. Social media is designed to be distracting. It's their business to make social media as distracting as possible so they keep us on their site longer and generate more ad revenue off us while we're sucked into its vortex. I don't know about you, but the more I'm consciously aware of how I'm being manipulated, the more I want to rebel.

But, if you feel the lure of checking your phone all too often and enjoy that dopamine rush a little too much, know that we have the power to change our behaviour.

And it's not as hard as you might think.

Rewiring and re-training our brains

Neuroplasticity is your brain's ability to change during your life. The expression 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks' is false. You can teach an old dog new tricks and you can no longer use that as an excuse to put off learning the guitar or studying Mandarin or whatever else you've had on your 'one day' list because you think you're too old. We can also train ourselves to not be so reliant on social media for those little feel-good hits of dopamine.

We can retrain our brains by creating new neural pathways. We can retrain our brains by not reaching for our phones during those brief moments of boredom, like at the bus stop or in the queue at the supermarket. The more times we practice and don't reach for our phones to kill those microseconds of boredom, the better we get at it and we start to create those new neural pathways we need to make it easier to no longer feel the pull to impulsively reach for our phones.

The challenge

The next time you feel the urge during a moment of boredom to check your phone, don't. Delay. Wait five or ten minutes. Maybe the urge will completely pass.

Decision fatigue and social media

I'm not sure how many decisions we make on average a day, but it's a crap tonne. It's one of the reasons Steve Jobs always wore his black turtleneck and Mark Zuckerberg wears his grey hoodie every day. There are only so many decisions we can make before experiencing decision fatigue. Even something as simple as deciding today what we'll wear tomorrow can help combat decision fatigue.

When we grab our phones or turn on our computers first thing in the morning to check emails or social media or news sites, we're giving away our best decision-making time to our devices and our social media accounts. Each time we decide to like an Instagram post or comment on a Facebook post, we're burning through our decision-making energy stores. Same when we choose our socks and decide what to eat for breakfast.

Decision fatigue poisons creativity. Wasting our decision-making ability on transient, unimportant details in our social media feeds crowds out the space we need for creation. Our decision-making ability and willpower is finite and needs to be replenished daily.

To be our best creative selves, we need to give our brains the space they need to be creative. We need to reserve our decision-making for things that matter, not whether to give a like to that highly stylised but yummy looking plate of pancakes with hot sauce or whether we'll wear the Argyle or plain socks today.

Developing new habits to help fight decision fatigue

There are some simple things you can do at day's end when your decision-making and willpower well is running dry that will help you the next day:

1. Write out your to-do list for the following day.

2. Write a list of all the things you know you need to remember the following day.

3. Write out your 'ta da' list of your accomplishments that day.

4. Decide what you're going to wear and set out your clothes ready for the morning. This can extend to other family members who rely on you for their daily clothing choices.

5. Decide what you're going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

6. Pack your bag with anything you need for the following day. If you're a parent, you can do this for the little people in your life you have to organise.

7. Develop a shut down routine after you finish working so you'll stop ruminating about work over dinner or while watching Suits or whatever it is you do in the evening and stop you from further depleting that decision-making well.

I don't do all of this. I do some, but rarely all each day. But here's the thing, when I do them, even just a couple, it really does help. I get greater mental clarity and better productivity as a consequence. There's more focus and I do better quality work.

The challenge

Combat decision fatigue by committing to at least two of the above items for one week, then check in and see if it's helping you. You can, of course, do them all, but that might seem like too much change to handle all at once. I'm going to commit to 1, 3, 4 and 7.

Reclaiming creativity

When you're in that sometimes elusive but always utopian state of flow and making connections between ideas, layering ideas and creating good stuff, we must experience a dopamine hit. Lots of micro-bursts of feel-good hits. And how much better for us is that compared to the thrill we get from an Instagram like or three. Pancakes with hot sauce? Meh.

I would much rather experience that state of flow than watch the world flow past in my news feed. But yet I continue to succumb to the lure of my phone during brief moments of distraction. Working with my phone out of the room is helpful. It's weird, but I don't feel the urge to check social sites via my computer's browser - it's my phone that lures me and where I need to be retrained. But if you do find it hard to resist sneaking a peek at Facie while working, use a browser plugin like Work Mode that will stop access to social media sites via your computer's browser.

Deep work, by Cal Newport

One of the best pieces of advice I got to reclaim creativity from social media was from Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work. I didn't get the tip from his book, but interestingly, I heard it when he was a guest on Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income podcast talking about his book. Cal's tip related to productivity, but I think it's equally applicable to creativity.

I don't remember Cal's exact suggestion, but I interpreted it as don't look at your phone for the first hour of the day. This could be your computer, too. Or a tablet, or any other electronic device you use.

I was intrigued by the idea and gave it a go. What better way to avoid decision fatigue than to avoid having to decide whether or not to give the stack of pancakes a like.

This idea was next level choosing socks the night before (go for the Argyle ones, always). I was diligent for a while. And it was wonderful. I spent the morning kid wrangling and getting The Monsta off to daycare and me off on a walk or to the gym.

On the days that I didn't turn my phone on for the first hour+, I found the urge to check social media declined for the rest of the day. It just didn't seem that important. I was also more productive.

These days, I give myself about 30 minutes before checking my phone. The exception is when I'm expecting a project catastrophe or I'm in weekend mode - choosing whether or not to like an image of a stack of pancakes is the pinnacle of my decision-making ability in holiday mode.

Truth: I hated this book. I found it repetitive and padded out to create a bloated word count. But its biggest fault is that it came from a place of unacknowledged privilege. He wrote it for a very narrow audience of men who clearly don't have to partake in boring household chores or early morning kid wrangling and can swan into their office after a morning run, preferably an academic office, men who are secure enough in their own importance to give the middle finger to the establishment that employs them by dictating the terms of their work arena. If he'd just acknowledged what a privilege this position is, I might not have had such an adverse reaction to the book.

But, if you're keen to read the book, buy it from Dymocks, QBD Books, Book Depository or Amazon.

The challenge

Level 1: Work with your phone out of the room, or at least out of your eye line and more than an easy arm's reach away. Silence your notifications. Activate the Work Mode plugin. Don't check your social accounts for at least an hour, then have a quick break and get straight back into work mode. (Cal would say that's a terrible idea and you shouldn't be on social media at all because any connection you make there is completely shallow. Ha! What a stick in the mud!)

Level 2: Don't use your phone for at least the first hour of the day (or your laptop, desktop or tablet). Go about your normal morning routine, minus checking email and other notifications. See what happens.

Over to you. Do you feel a chronic urge to check social media on your phone or computer? Do you have any strategies for dealing with decision fatigue or for reclaiming your creativity? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.
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Social media is killing your creativity - The Smarter Writer

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Note: This post contains affiliate links. Listen to the audio version or read the post below. Don't worry, I'm not one of 'THOSE' people. I'm not a social media killjoy. I love it and use it often, every day.

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Creativity - using our imagination to come up with ideas or make something new - is one of the most valuable qualities human beings can have. Innovative thinking will serve our kids well in whatever endeavors they choose, and the more we encourage creative activity during their formative years, the more comfortable and confident they'll feel in sharing their ideas with others.

We generally don't have to teach kids to be creative. Most children seem to have a natural instinct for it. If we provide them the tools and get out of the way, young kids will create to their heart's content. But eventually some things do tend to get in the way - fear, time, passive entertainment, to name a few - which is where we as parents step in.

We can help create an environment for our kids that fuels creative thinking. Here are some ways to help nurture a vibrant sense of creativity in your home:

I wish I could rid the world of every toy that just does one thing. Most of the time, those kinds of toys get used a few times and then ditched. Open-ended toys, on the other hand, get used for years and can be passed down for generations. Blocks, building sets, toy animals - anything that can be used in multiple ways for multiple purposes will encourage imaginative play and creativity. We still have Legos that belonged to my husband when he was a kid. Open-ended toys are timeless and limitless in their possibilities.

We have a big cabinet filled with arts-and-crafts supplies that the kids can access any time, along with large trays for keeping smaller work contained. You don't have to have a huge budget for supplies though - my kids have made some awesome things with old boxes, empty paper towel rolls, and scrap paper. Give your kids some scissors, duct tape, and markers, and tell them to raid the recycling bin. You'd be amazed at the rocket ships that can be created from a box and a marker.

There's something to be said for structured creative endeavors such as dance or art classes. Building skills in a methodical way is valuable, but we shouldn't be so eager to help our kids develop skills that we neglect to give them time and space to freely explore their imaginations. Creativity needs room to breathe.

Kids have their own thought processes, and we can't always see what they are thinking just by looking at something they've made. Having them articulate their process and the ideas behind what they were going for helps you and them understand how they think. Asking questions also shows greater interest in what they're doing than a simple, "Wow, that's cool!"

Creativity is about more than just artistic expression. People can be creative with math, science, computer coding, and every other endeavor. Being creative means coming up with a new idea or putting things together in a way that hasn't been done before. We can encourage that kind of ingenuity and creative thinking by sharing and building on ideas with our kids in different aspects of life. Hold family brainstorming sessions and encourage everyone's participation. Help kids see that sharing ideas isn't scary.

Kids learn more from what you do than what you say, and if you are setting the example of exploring your creativity, kids will internalize that example. Let them see you try something new and experiment until you figure out what works. Let them see you make mistakes and learn from them. Let them see you enjoy your own creative process. Let them see what it looks like to wrangle your own fears or insecurities and let your imagination roam freely.

Sure, kids will need to learn to deal with criticism, but not from their parents and not about something they've created. Our role here is cheerleader, not judge. Kids' creations are not always stellar, but if they've put time and effort into something, and if they're proud of it, that should be honored. "Look at that! You worked really hard on that! How wonderful!" is one way of complimenting a child's creation without critiquing the content. Always find something positive to say. Encouragement is a much better teacher than criticism.

Fostering a creative environment in your home is one way to instill in your kids the skills and mindsets that will carry them into a rich and fulfilling future. It can also make your home life more fun. No matter what our age or stage in life, we can all benefit from the joy and wonder of exploring our imaginations on a regular basis.

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7 Simple Ways To Nurture Your Children's Creativity At Home

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Creativity - using our imagination to come up with ideas or make something new - is one of the most valuable qualities human beings can have. Innovative thinking will serve our kids well in whatever endeavors they choose, and the more we encourage creative activity during their formative years, the more comfortable and confident they'll feel in sharing their ideas with others.

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Social media has become a part of our daily life. Although the debate about how social media may affect the quality of life, users of different social media have increased over time. Facebook users for example increased from 75 million to 600 million in the between 2008 and 2011. LinkedIn users increased from 20 million to 100 million in the same period. Social networks have become accessible by almost all out digital devices including computers, mobile phones, tablet devices, and wearable technology such as Google glasses and the Apple watch.

The debates concerning social media is repeated when there are continual new trends and technologies. While email service was invented by Ray Tomlinson in 1974, research presented by Archambault and Grudin during the Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2012) indicates that the service was not accepted by businesses and organizations until the late 1990s. At this time, there was debate that email service reduces productivity and many companies suggested it be removed and replaced by traditional correspondence methods.

Design and visual arts are part of the most favorable media shared on social networks. Sharing images and video content indicates higher engagements and exposure compared with text status on Facebook. Social networks that are based on visual arts and design such as Pinterest have proven success in the social market. Therefore, we should stop blaming ourselves for using our social media accounts as indulgent and start to look at social media from a different perspective to understand how to form this tool for the benefit for our creativity and fuel our talent.

The Pros of Using Social Media

Many articles blame social media to negatively affect creativity and reduce the designer's ability to create new ideas. Although social media websites may be seen as distractive from the main creative process, there are advantages of using the social media to serve creative people as following:
Source of Inspiration
Many social networks started to support different types of media including images, animated GIFs, videos and sound tracks. This extended support allows both designers and artists to explore new ideas and inspirations for their own projects. In the old days, we used to search in huge library of books to learn about specific design style. Joining a Facebook page or a Pinterest board lets one preview hundreds and even thousands of ideas and styles in less time and effort.

Specialized social media networks allows designers to connect with their peers to view content related to their interest. For example, Vimeo.com is a video social media network that is more specialized in artistic and professional video footages, unlike Youtube.com which contains generic videos and less inspirational smash-ups. Behance.net is another portfolio social network owned by Adobe Systems Inc. This social network is specialized for designers, artists, and photographers to share their work and get feedback as well as appreciation. Furthermore, the platform supports searching for jobs, which allows companies to search for talented designers on Behance as well. This extra advantage increases the benefit of the social network.
Learning and Expanding Knowledge
Many of the educational institutions and design bodies use different social networks to share their news and resources. Many students prefer to follow these bodies on social network websites because it is easier to reach and allow them to follow all the resources and projects directly from their Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn profiles.

Although there is debate in considering social media as source for academic learning, many scholars are starting to use social media to share their research papers and presentations such as researchgate.net, academia.edu, and slideshare.com.
Learning Groups
Social groups such as Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, and Google Plus groups were built to gather people with the same interests to share ideas and collaborate together. Many students and designers have started to build learning groups based on schools, classes, and even specific courses. In these groups, students and designers use groups as method to learn, discuss assignments, and share projects together. The digital learning group replaced many of the local school learning groups because it allows students to communicate during travels or summer breaks.
Get Feedback and Criticism
Social media such as Behance.net and Devientarts.com allows followers to add comments and give feedback on the presented artwork. Criticism and feedback are one of the essential learning resources of any designer to improve work based on others feedback. In other creative fields such as photography, feedback is very important for photographers to enhance their work. Photography social networks such as 500px.com and 1x.com allow a better feedback experience through displaying the photograph and camera specifications.
Promotional Tools
Social network websites have extended its role from sharing content to adding marketing and advertising methods. Designers use social networks to promote their work and services. Facebook pages provide a very effective method to promote services and project updates. The advertising feature in Facebook can be used to promote services among Facebook's huge base of users. Other social networks such as LinkedIn presents a business-wise platform, where users can add their resumes, projects, and apply for jobs.

The Cons of Using Social Media

Although there are benefits as noted above, there is an agreement among experts that there are disadvantages of using social networks especially when many people become addicted to it while not engaging in any productive work or time. Below are some of the commonly highlighted disadvantages of using social networks:
Everyone is a Designer
All social networks allows users to upload artwork without any restrictions on the quality and the ownership of the original artwork. Everyone has the right to upload designs even if they are not worth the time for others to view and share. The result is that the good work get lost among all the other unqualified artworks. Good designers can't be spotted among the massive number of beginners.

This problem occurs in general interest social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. In specialized networks such as Behance.net, and 500px.com, there is a rating system that allows other professional designers or photographers to rate the artwork or promote it to be featured in the homepage. This system contributes to highlighting the creative artwork and bury the bad or unqualified submissions.

It is very important to choose the right social media to share your design work. For example, if you are sharing design work to get a professional profile and career opportunities, Behance.net can be the best social network to use. Also, make sure to submit your best ideas that reflect your talent and experience; think more about the quality of the work rather than the quantity.
Reducing Creativity
The massive number of shares and likes in social media distracts designers and artists from the real creative process. Instead of focusing on the production of the artwork, reviewing others' shares and artworks consume the time and the effort required to start your own project. While there are lots of inspirational resources on social media websites, there should be a balanced use for these websites.

In order to avoid these distractiond, focus your activities on a number of social networks that help you develop your design skills. Some applications allows you to view and share artwork from one simple interface such as hootsuite.com and buffer.com.
Intellectual Properties
Sharing copyrighted materials and stealing other's design ideas are among the important disadvantages of using social media websites. While you share your designs to get feedback or a possible business opportunity others can view the design and can either steal it or copy the idea without permissions.

Some social media website such as 500px.com disable the ability to copy or save images, other website provide section for the artwork copyrights such as flickr.com. It is important to understand the copyright issues related to your work and share creative artwork carefully through social media websites. Also, designers should choose the social network that help them copyright their work to avoid unauthorized reproduction and theft.
Losing Sense of a Real Life
Human beings are social creatures. Communicating between others and learning about other's thoughts may drive more ideas and inspire designers and artists to think with the end user or client in mind. Although the digital world allows you to meet with people from different countries, it prevents the real meaning of social communication. Human brains communicate better when two people talk face-to-face rather than using texting or chat applications.

In addition to social network website, make sure to keep your physical life active and running. Spending time with you friends and colleges in order to maintain the physical life style that helps you create new ideas.
Time Waste
Being addicted to social networks leads to significant time loss. Checking new updates and engaging with others all the time consumes your production and creative thinking time. The availability of social media on mobile devices contribute to this time loss as designers spend time to check their social media profiles on both the computer and mobile device multiple times during the day and sometimes during the same hour. Many companies block social media websites from their network in order to drive employees to focus on their daily tasks.

While it is helpful to communicate with others around the world and share experience, it is very important to limit these activities in order to focus during the design or project development. Some applications can be used to block the Internet or specific websites to help you to focus on more important tasks. Using applications such as hootsuite.com helps you to spend less time managing all your social profiles through one application.
Easy Access to Information
The value of spending effort in order to reach information gives it more value comparing with easy access information. People can easily google any question to find millions of results. Some of these results are credible while other results need to be investigated. Many designers and users share untrusted information through social networks with a simple click of a button. The culture of verifying information gets lost with the massive number of shares on different social media.

Designers should share information from trusted and credible website that share verifying information. If the information is not verified, it should not be shared on social networks. Much wrong information has spread through the Internet because the easy share feature while the content and credibility of the shared data is questionable.

Social Networking or No to Social Networking?

Based on the pros and cons above for using social media and its impact on creativity, designers should understand that social media is a very helpful tool that can be used to learn, find inspiration, communicate with other designers, share artwork, and find business opportunities. However, designers should use social media website carefully to avoid the disadvantages. Based on the criteria discussed above, below are some of the tips that help you get the most out of the social media as a tool for designers:

Limit usage time to avoid affecting production time

Use social networks that relate to your design interest such as Behance, Pinterest, and Deviantarts

Share your best work to represent your self and make sure to check the copyright issues -use social websites that try to secure your work such as Flikr and Behance

Do not lose your physical life and try to meet with your friends from time to time

Use social networks as a learning method and privilege the learning features such as groups

Use social networks as a tool to build a professional profile and promote it through other networks. For example create your profile on Behance and share it using your Facebook profile.

The above tips can help you reduce the disadvantages of using social media websites and increase the benefits that can be acquired from them.

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How Social Media Affects Your Creativity

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Social media has become a part of our daily life. Although the debate about how social media may affect the quality of life, users of different social media have increased over time. Facebook users for example increased from 75 million to 600 million in the between 2008 and 2011.

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As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.

Learners have changed as a result of their exposure to technology, says Greenfield, who analyzed more than 50 studies on learning and technology, including research on multi-tasking and the use of computers, the Internet and video games. Her research was published this month in the journal Science.

Reading for pleasure, which has declined among young people in recent decades, enhances thinking and engages the imagination in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not, Greenfield said.

How much should schools use new media, versus older techniques such as reading and classroom discussion?

"No one medium is good for everything," Greenfield said. "If we want to develop a variety of skills, we need a balanced media diet. Each medium has costs and benefits in terms of what skills each develops."

Schools should make more effort to test students using visual media, she said, by asking them to prepare PowerPoint presentations, for example.

"As students spend more time with visual media and less time with print, evaluation methods that include visual media will give a better picture of what they actually know," said Greenfield, who has been using films in her classes since the 1970s.

"By using more visual media, students will process information better," she said. "However, most visual media are real-time media that do not allow time for reflection, analysis or imagination - those do not get developed by real-time media such as television or video games. Technology is not a panacea in education, because of the skills that are being lost.

"Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades."

Parents should encourage their children to read and should read to their young children, she said.

Among the studies Greenfield analyzed was a classroom study showing that students who were given access to the Internet during class and were encouraged to use it during lectures did not process what the speaker said as well as students who did not have Internet access. When students were tested after class lectures, those who did not have Internet access performed better than those who did.

"Wiring classrooms for Internet access does not enhance learning," Greenfield said.

Another study Greenfield analyzed found that college students who watched "CNN Headline News" with just the news anchor on screen and without the "news crawl" across the bottom of the screen remembered significantly more facts from the televised broadcast than those who watched it with the distraction of the crawling text and with additional stock market and weather information on the screen.

These and other studies show that multi-tasking "prevents people from getting a deeper understanding of information," Greenfield said.

Yet, for certain tasks, divided attention is important, she added.

"If you're a pilot, you need to be able to monitor multiple instruments at the same time. If you're a cab driver, you need to pay attention to multiple events at the same time. If you're in the military, you need to multi-task too," she said. "On the other hand, if you're trying to solve a complex problem, you need sustained concentration. If you are doing a task that requires deep and sustained thought, multi-tasking is detrimental."

Do video games strengthen skill in multi-tasking?

New Zealand researcher Paul Kearney measured multi-tasking and found that people who played a realistic video game before engaging in a military computer simulation showed a significant improvement in their ability to multi-task, compared with people in a control group who did not play the video game. In the simulation, the player operates a weapons console, locates targets and reacts quickly to events.

Greenfield wonders, however, whether the tasks in the simulation could have been performed better if done alone.

More than 85 percent of video games contain violence, one study found, and multiple studies of violent media games have shown that they can produce many negative effects, including aggressive behavior and desensitization to real-life violence, Greenfield said in summarizing the findings.

In another study, video game skills were a better predictor of surgeons' success in performing laparoscopic surgery than actual laparoscopic surgery experience. In laparoscopic surgery, a surgeon makes a small incision in a patient and inserts a viewing tube with a small camera. The surgeon examines internal organs on a video monitor connected to the tube and can use the viewing tube to guide the surgery.

"Video game skill predicted laparoscopic surgery skills," Greenfield said. "The best video game players made 47 percent fewer errors and performed 39 percent faster in laparoscopic tasks than the worst video game players."

Visual intelligence has been rising globally for 50 years, Greenfield said. In 1942, people's visual performance, as measured by a visual intelligence test known as Raven's Progressive Matrices, went steadily down with age and declined substantially from age 25 to 65. By 1992, there was a much less significant age-related disparity in visual intelligence, Greenfield said.

"In a 1992 study, visual IQ stayed almost flat from age 25 to 65," she said.

Greenfield believes much of this change is related to our increased use of technology, as well as other factors, including increased levels of formal education, improved nutrition, smaller families and increased societal complexity.

The Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles, has received federal funding from the National Science Foundation.

UCLA is California's largest university, with an enrollment of nearly 38,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The UCLA College of Letters and Science and the university's 11 professional schools feature renowned faculty and offer more than 323 degree programs and majors. UCLA is a national and international leader in the breadth and quality of its academic, research, health care, cultural, continuing education and athletic programs. Four alumni and five faculty have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

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Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis?

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As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.

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How Technology Can Expand Creativity and Innovation in Education - The Edvocate

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Spread the love Creativity has always been a part of a successful classroom, however recent advances in technology are making it possible to increase the ability for students to use their creativity in academia. With the ability to take and store thousands of pictures and videos, and listen to music…

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In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives.

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Technology and human life cannot be separated; society has a cyclical co-dependence on technology. We use technology; depend on technology in our daily life and our needs and demands for technology keep on rising. Humans use technology to travel, to communicate, to , to do and to live in comfort. However, technology has also caused us concerns. Its poor application has resulted in the pollution of the environment and it has also caused a serious threat to our lives and society. This calls for the proper use of technology. The biggest challenge facing people is to determine the type of future we need to have and then create relevant technologies which will simplify the way we do things.

It is impossible to explore how each new advanced technology has impacted our lives and how it will impact the future. Technology impacts the environment, people and the society as a whole. The way we use technology determines if its are positive to the society or negative. For example, ( POSITIVE IMPACT) we can use corn to make ethanol and this ethanol can be used as fuel. Fuel can be used to run machines and cars which will increase the output of manufacturing industries at a lower cost. ( NEGATIVE IMPACT) However, if we decide to shift large quantities of corn to fuel production from food production, humans will be left with no food and this will cause world hunger which even is a worse situation.

Basing on the example above, technology by its self is not harmful to the society, but the way society uses technology to achieve specific goals is what results into negative impacts of technology on the society. Humans need to use energy to process products in factories, to run cars, to light homes and also run technological machines like computers, but the only way we can do this without affecting the environment and society is by shifting from exhaustible energy sources to renewable and inexhaustible sources like Solar / Wind energy.I have listed both positive and negative impacts of technology on our society.

Positive Impacts of Technology on Society

Technology has mechanized agriculture: Modern agricultural technology allows a small number of people to grow vast quantities of food in a short period of time with less input which results into high yields and RIO "return on investment". Through government subsidies, small and medium-sized farmers have managed to acquire plowing, sowing, watering and harvesting machines. The use of technology in agriculture has also resulted in the manufacturing of genetic crops which can grow fast and they can be resistant to many pests and diseases. Also, farmers have access to artificial fertilizers which add value to the soil and boost the growth of their crops and enable them to produce high-quality yields. Farmers in dry areas have been in a position to grow healthy crops, they use advanced water pumps and sprinklers which derive water from rivers to the farms, the all process can be automated to save time. A good example is Egypt, this is a desert country which receives little rain, but small and big farmers have used automated sprinklers to irrigate their farms. In Egypt, they grow a lot of rice, yet this crop needs sufficient water to grow well. The water is pumped from River Nile to the rice fields on a daily basis.

Technology has improved transportation: Transportation is one of the basic areas of technological activity. Both society and businesses have benefited from the new transpiration methods. Transportation provides mobility for people and goods. Transportation, like all other technologies, can be viewed as a system. It is a series of parts that are interrelated. These parts all work together to meet a certain goal. Transportation uses vehicles, trains, airplanes, motorbikes, people, roads, energy, information, materials, finance and time. All these parts I have mentioned work together to move and relocate people and goods. Technology has helped in advancing all the four types of transportation and these include ; (1) road transport used by automobiles ,(2) air transport which is used by airplanes , (3)water transportation which is used by ships and speed boats and (4) space transportation used to go to the moon. The most used of all these is Road transportation, this one facilitates the movement of goods and people. Technologies like automobiles, buses, and trucks have improved the way humans move and how they transport their goods from place to another. Also, developing countries are getting funds from wealthy countries to improve their road transport which has resulted in the development of rural remote areas.

Technology has improved communication: Communication is used for a number of purposes. Both society and organizations depend on communication to transfer information. People use technology to communicate with each other. Electronic media like radios, televisions, internet, social media have improved the way we exchange ideas which can develop our societies. In many countries, radios and televisions are used to voice the concerns of the society, they organize live forums where the community can contribute through mobile phones or text service systems like tweeter. During political elections, leaders use radio, television and internet media to reach the people they want to serve. A good example is the recent presidential election in the USA, "President Barak Obama " has embraced the communication technology to reach and voice out his concerns towards the development of America. Communication technologies like Televisions, radios, and internet can be used to persuade, entertain and inform the society. Small businesses have also used the internet and mobile communication technology to grow and improve their customer service. Learn more about Communication Technology here >>>

Technology has improved and learning process: Education is the backbone of every economy. People need well and organized educational infrastructures so that they can learn how to interpret information. Many schools have started integrating educational technologies in their schools with a great aim of improving the way students learn. Technologies like smart whiteboards, computers, mobile phones, iPads, projectors, and internet are being used in classrooms to boost students moral to learn. Visual education is becoming more popular and it has proved to be the best method of learning in many subjects like mathematics, physics, biology, geography, economics and much more. The business community has invested money in various educational technologies which can be used by both teachers and their students. For example, on iTunes, you will find many educational applications which can allow students and teachers exchange academic information at any time, this has made learning mobile. Also, programs like Long distance learning have opened boundaries too so many scholars around the world.

Negative Impacts of Technology on Society

The more demand for new technologies and advancement of current technologies, the more pressure we put on earth's natural resources. Look at the total number of mobile phones and computers being manufactured today, our population is increasing every day and all these billion consumers demand either a mobile phone or a computer in their homes or offices. This is good news for the manufactures, like Apple or Samsung, the demand for their gadgets is high, but to sustain this demand, they have to exploit Mother Nature for resources like aluminum, once these resources are extracted from the earth plates, they will never return back because it took them a billion years to mature. That means that at one time, we shall be left with no natural resource which can be a problem to the future generation and economy. Likewise, the intensive farming practices will deplete the soil. This makes heavy applications of commercial fertilizers necessary to yield healthy harvests, but also these fertilizers have chemicals which are dangerous to the soil and human lives.

Technology has helped us live longer by improving health facilities and aiding in the research for solutions for most health problems which affect humans. This is good news for developed countries but is bad news for developing countries which have not been in a position to access these health care benefits brought by technology. In developed countries population growth is controlled by advanced birth control methods, this has helped them balance their population in relation to natural resources and other opportunities which come with a planned population. This is different in developing countries, the rate at which people produce is very high, the mortality rate is high, food is scarce and health care is poor.

Pollution affects the land we grow crops on, the water we drink and the air we breathe. The increased demand for new technologies and advancement of technologies has resulted in many manufacturing and processing factories. As they work so hard to create the best technologies for both society and business, they release harmful chemicals and gasses which have polluted our environment and this has resulted in climate changes (global warming). So the more technology we enjoy, the more we harm our environment. Experts have tried to implement ways of reducing this impact by encouraging factories to go green, to a small extent, this has been achieved through the development of green technologies like; green cars, green computers, but a great effort is still needed to reduce the pollution of the air and the earth.

Serious research has been undertaken to publish this content, so you're in the right place. I love technology, I believe embracing its potential for personal, business or educational advancement will pave the way forward for us all. We've all heard "knowledge is power", with this website I hope, to some degree, to empower you!

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Technology And Society - Impact of Technology On Society -

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Technology and human life cannot be separated; society has a cyclical co-dependence on technology. We use technology; depend on technology in our daily life and our needs and demands for technology keep on rising. Humans use technology to travel, to communicate, to learn, to do business and to live in comfort.

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When third-graders at Pendergast Elementary School in the Pendergast Elementary School District learned about the different types of bridges, they read a little in their textbook then visited the Golden Gate Bridge via virtual reality on the iPads they use in class.

"Everything we learned about in our test, how they were working on the cables and how they were doing everything is all right here," said Lisa Slover, who teaches third grade at the southwest Phoenix school.
Video by Lauren Negrete/AZEdNews: Technology in the Classroom
Students used Keynote on their iPads to create their projects on the differences between suspension and beam bridges, then sent their projects to Slover for corrections via Airdrop.

Seventy-five percent of teachers use technology daily with their students and they say it helps them create more creative lessons and provides more time for one-on-one attention for students, according to Education Week's 2017 Technology in the Classroom survey, which gathered responses from more than 2,500 teachers and administrators across the U.S.

This is all possible thanks to Apple's ConnectED grant that the school was awarded in 2016, which provided the iPads and programs that the school incorporated into its curriculum, said Michael Woolsey, principal of the school in the district that serves more than 10,000 students in Avondale, Glendale and Phoenix. One hundred fourteen schools in the nation and 13 in Arizona received Apple ConnectED grants to support their educational goals with technology this year.

"We're getting them ready for careers and college, and putting devices in their hands that are going to impact their learning, and impact their marketability," Woolsey said.
Impact on engagement and achievement
Not only are engagement levels and test scores up in this second year of the school's technology-centered curriculum, but discipline issues and office referrals have been cut in half, Woolsey said.

"Our kids are engaged in high-levels of learning at our school, and it's a great time to be a student right now," Woolsey said.
Boosting creativity and confidence
Using the technology also has had an emotional impact on students, who have created presentations to show their work or turned in iMovie projects with voice-over narration, said Michelle Longmire, Pendergast's technology teacher.

Students have shown a sense of pride and confidence in their ability to do creative work, and the technology has helped shy students to better express themselves, Longmire said.

In art classes, students have used an Apple's Sketchbook for Education to do multi-layered drawings by importing pictures of themselves and doing contour drawing over them with a layering system before using the airbrush tool to render their pictures, said Deborah LaPrell, who teaches art at the school.

"It's beneficial because a lot of the technology that we have out in the professional world is leading us to use those programs more," LaPrell said, noting that Sketchbook is easier to use than Adobe Photoshop and offers similar features.

Students enjoy learning with the iPads and virtual reality, Slover said.

"There's all kinds of things that the kids can access, things they might not be able to do in their lifetime such as go to another planet, but because of virtual reality, they're actually able to see it like they're there," Slover said. "Which is really neat for them."
Enhancing students' focus
Also, working on the iPads helps students keep on task, Slover said.

"They are so busy doing what they're doing, they're not paying attention to what their neighbor is doing," Slover said.

Plus, the threat of having their iPad privileges revoked is enough to make sure her third graders don't navigate somewhere else, Slover said.

Students are warned that the iPads are being monitored by teachers to prevent them from looking at web pages they're not supposed to, and the IT department can block certain sites like Facebook or Instagram with iBoss, Longmire said.
Teacher training and curriculum integration
A key part of implementing technology-centered curriculum has been training teachers and helping them become more comfortable using technology in the classroom, Longmire said.

Ninety-eight percent of teachers said they used digital technology in their classrooms, and 43 percent said they collaborated with colleagues to develop engaging, effective instruction, according to "2017 Educator Confidence Report: Setting the Stage for the Digital Age," a recent survey by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

At a teacher collaborative event with a sister school in the district, Apple trainers showed teachers and staff how to use select products to enhance learning, Longmire said.

Even after training, it's important to remember that there is a learning curve for teachers just like there is for students, Slover said.

"We are getting the apps and different programs and things sent to us and we have the one day of training, but that's not enough for us to really know what we are doing and to create new lessons," Slover said.

"It's just going to take time for us as teachers to really develop the ability to work with some of the different programs, create lessons and make the changes that we need to in teaching," Slover said.
What the future holds
Woolsey said he hopes to keep the program going strong over time by using new apps that enhance learning and by teaching students how to develop apps that the school may use in the future.

"Not only are they learning from things that are already developed, but they are also developing the tools they are going to be using," Woolsey said.

In the future, Longmire said she would like to see the technology used to help students learn more about careers they are interested in and the training they'll need after high school to succeed at those careers, including college and graduate school.

"Can we use these iPads to show them those different careers? Yes," Longmire said, noting that virtual reality is a tremendous help with that. "They are able to see different things that people do and be able to pick what they want to do."

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Technology in class increases creativity, decreases discipline issues

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When third-graders at Pendergast Elementary School in the Pendergast Elementary School District learned about the different types of bridges, they read a little in their textbook then visited the Golden Gate Bridge via Google virtual reality on the iPads they use in class.

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I recently wrote a post about how marketers will need to learn to rely less on judgment and intuition in the era of big data. It's a controversial subject, especially since many marketers pride themselves, in fact have built their careers, on having a reputation for instinct.

So I expected a certain amount of pushback, but instead many people seemed to think that I was arguing that technology was diminishing the need for creativity in marketing. This is clearly not the case. So let me set the record straight.

Technology does not quell creativity, in fact, there's a great deal of evidence that suggests that technology enhances creativity. Certainly, we are expected to be more creative in our working lives than a generation ago. The truth is that by expanding possibilities and automating part of the creative process, we can all be more creative and productive.
Defining The Creative Process
While many like to think of creativity as a mysterious process, researchers generally agree that there are clear principles at work, such as a lucid formulation of the problem, knowledge and practice in a particular field, crossing domains and persistence.

I previously summarized these principles in formulating a creative process in a post about creative intelligence:

1. Forming intent: Every creative act starts with a purpose. Whether it is a marketer trying to solve for a particular business objective, a designer working with a specific brief or an artist looking to express a distinct idea or emotion. It is through forming intent that we establish the constraints under which creativity thrives.

The process of forming intent is inherently human. There are some things that machines will never do: they will never strike out at a little league game, fall in love, have their heart broken or raise a family. It is out of human experience that our wants and desires arise.

2. Searching The Domain: All great artists-or for that matter, anybody who is good at anything-are students of their craft. By thoroughly examining their domain, they become aware of a variety of techniques, alternative approaches and different philosophies. The larger the creative toolbox, the greater the possibility for creative excellence.

One particularly famous and well studied example of the benefits of searching the domain is Picasso's encounter with African art that led him to pioneer cubism and marked a turning point in his career. His later work, combining aspects of both European and African style, set a new course for the art world.

3. Tangling Hierarchies: Truly revolutionary creative acts come from synthesizing across domains, as Picasso did with African and European art or Darwin did by combining insights from economics, geology and biology to come up with his theory of natural selection.

The idea of combination comes up prominently in research into the psychology of creativity, such as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's discussion of creative flow and Douglas Hofstadter's concept of strange loops. Innovation is largely the art of combination.
Technology Eradicates Barriers To Creative Excellence
Luck and chance have always played a role in creativity. What if Picasso had not wandered into that African art exhibition or Darwin not taken the voyage on The Beagle? These happy accidents are interesting and exciting, but luck is not a strategy. In fact, history is full of examples of missed opportunities because of deficiencies of information.

Darwin's theory remained incomplete for half a century, because he was not able to specify a mechanism by which traits were inherited. Ironically, his contemporary, Gregor Mendel, had discovered the principles of genetics shortly after Darwin published his famous work, but they remained completely unaware of each other for their entire lifetimes.

Clearly, technology has transformed human experience. We are no longer separated by time and space, but are largely working off of the same massive database. The sum total of human knowledge is merely a few clicks away. Domains are no longer hidden behind barriers of circumstance or tradition, but are accessible to anyone with a search engine.

And it is not just information that has become accessible, but personal contact. Whether through social media or web video conferences or MOOC's, it's far easier to people to meet and collaborate than ever before in human history. Searching the domain is no longer a matter of chance. Technology and automation have streamlined the process.
Mixing And Remixing
There is a fundamental difference between knowledge and information. Knowledge is personal. I might know how to play the piano or how to get to the store, but transferring that knowledge to another is a cumbersome affair. It's difficult to explain things exactly as we experience them and the person on the other side won't take it all in with perfect fidelity.

Information, on the other hand, is a storable, fungible entity. We can store and transfer it with any level of accuracy we choose, which makes it easy to combine with other information. In fact, it's become so easy to combine ideas through information that we've come to think of mashups as banal and trite.

That's because combining ideas no longer takes any particular skill. Like searching domains, the process has become so completely automated that it ceases to be associated with personal expression. Devoid of toil and labor, it requires negligible specific intent.
Simulating Failure
The ugly truth is that most creative acts are failures, which is why, as Robert Weisberg points out in his book Creativity, outstanding creative work is tightly linked to prolific output. The more work we produce, the more great work we produce. The problem is that it's often hard to separate the good from the bad.

Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in David and Goliath how this can create serious difficulties. Even geniuses like Monet and Renoir found it difficult to stand out when they had one or two paintings among the thousands at Paris's famous Salon exhibition, but gained traction when they created their own show where they could display more works.

Clearly, failure in the analog world was expensive, tiresome and frustrating. But in the digital world, we can simulate failure cheaply and easily. From CAD software to 3D printers, A/B testing to agent based models, technology lets us experiment in the world of bits before we invest resources in the world of atoms.

And that's how technology enhances creativity, it drastically reduces the cost of actualizing our intent. We can search domains, mix and match ideas and test concepts almost effortlessly. That means we can try out a lot more possibilities and increase the chances of producing something truly outstanding.
The Rise of the Creative Class
Probably the strongest sign that technology enhances creativity is that, as Richard Florida argues in The Rise Of The Creative Class, creativity is becoming an intrinsic part of working life. The man in the gray flannel suit has been replaced by the hipster with spiky hair and tattoos.

As we become a more technological society, we also become a more creative society, because many of the rote tasks that used to take up a lot of our time and effort have become automated. What's more, technology increases our potential to engage in the types of experiences that lead to greater creativity.

Certainly today, exposure to African art is not rare or difficult to obtain. A modern day Darwin wouldn't need to embark on a five year voyage to inspect the finches of the Galapagos, an internet connection or a plane ticket would do. He could also model his suspicions by computer, shortening the gap between hypothesis and theory.

The fact that everyone has access to a wealth and diversity of ideas and the means to actualize intent means that we all can be more creative. As Jaron Lanier put it, "in a virtual world of infinite abundance, only creativity could ever be in short supply."

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I recently wrote a post about how marketers will need to learn to rely less on judgment and intuition in the era of big data. It's a controversial subject, especially since many marketers pride themselves, in fact have built their careers, on having a reputation for instinct.

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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At K-12 schools and universities, educators and administrators are preoccupied with preparing students for jobs that won't be replaced by automation.

Tech experts, such as Slack senior software engineer Ryan Greenberg, have indicated that schools can do this by teaching students soft skills like problem-solving, communication and critical thinking. Creative problem-solving also is a major proficiency of a successful 21st-century employee, Adobe finds in a report titled, " Creative Problem Solving in Schools: Essential Skills Today's Students Need for Jobs in Tomorrow's Age of Automation."

After surveying K-12 and university instructors across the globe, Adobe reports that 74 percent of educators say professions that require creative thinking are less likely to be impacted by automation.

Yet, 69 percent of these educators also say today's primary and secondary curricula doesn't emphasize creative problem-solving enough.

While some educators at the K-12 and university levels have leveraged digital storytelling and other technological resources to promote creative thinking, many survey respondents have hit obstacles when doing so. Some of the top issues they run into include:

Limited time to create

A lack of educator training

Limited student access to software and other tech, at school and at home

Outdated testing requirements

Teachers and professors indicated in the Adobe survey that simple steps can be taken to alleviate these issues and nurture creative problem-solving. They suggested that more professional development (85 percent) could be offered, budgets could be increased for technology (75 percent) and tech access could be prioritized for underprivileged students (71 percent).
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Adobe Makes Tech More Accessible

In response to this research, Adobe announced that beginning in April, it will offer Spark Premium - a storytelling tool that helps create visual aids - to schools and universities for free.

In addition to this, Adobe made sure Creative Cloud services are in line with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule so that children under age 13 can now access the tools. Also, new single sign-on features make it easier for students to access creative tools anywhere.

Adobe hopes this research - and these actions - might drive changes from policymakers and tech industry leaders.

"Educators, policymakers and industry - technology in particular - need to come together to improve opportunities for students," says Tacy Trowbridge, global lead for Adobe's education programs, in the press release. "Creative technologies can help educators teach and nurture critically important soft skills, and policies and curricula need to evolve to complete the equation."
FOLLOW US: EdTech: Focus on K-12 is now on Pinterest! Discover smart ways to use tech in the classroom.
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Lack of Technology Can Impede Creative Skills, Adobe Research Finds

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At K-12 schools and universities, educators and administrators are preoccupied with preparing students for jobs that won't be replaced by automation. Tech experts, such as Slack senior software engineer Ryan Greenberg, have indicated that schools can do this by teaching students soft skills like problem-solving, communication and critical thinking.

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When was the last time you talked to someone on the bus, in a waiting room or any other "waiting" kind of place in public? The chances are that it has been a while. If you're waiting somewhere, your phone is in your hand and the entire waiting area looks something like this...
Photo credit: vator.tv
The predominance of technology and smartphones in particular has lead to many suggestions that creativity is being killed by our reliance on these tools. This isn't a new thought - people were suggesting that technology was extinguishing creative impulses long ago. When I was a kid, it was TV and computer games that were to bring the downfall of imaginations everywhere.

Yet here we still are, creating stuff.

So, what's the deal really? Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World back in 1932 where he suggested a future in which humans sated a constant desire for distraction through technology. Thought could be kept at bay because we would simply zap any boredom by distracting ourselves with our technological devices.

That's often the crux of the argument - that we're sacrificing original thought for keeping ourselves constantly entertained. It's also argued that if we can find everything online somewhere, we don't give ourselves room to problem-solve and innovate on our own.

Others argue that technology is enhancing our creativity, so who's right? Let's look at both sides of the argument...

Technology is Killing Creativity

Have you seen a meme like the one below floating around the internet recently?

A strong argument for technology killing creativity is that kids (and adults) who always have their heads in their phones, tablets or laptops lack imaginative activities that help to promote creativity.

Has the device in your hand become the technological distraction Aldous Huxley described, keeping thought at bay?

Scientific study tells us that we need time to daydream as daydreaming boosts our creativity. If we're filling any possible down time with scrolling through devices, are we inhibiting that daydream time? Creativity is often referred to as a "use it or lose it" discipline. You might work in a creative job role, but even you could be strangling your creativity by being fastened to a device constantly.

Source: Connor Senior on Behance

Copying and Lack of Originality is Rife

You can access basically anything you like online. There are templates for everything and even academic information is available all over the internet, resulting in more piracy and allegedly, less creative thought when it comes to academic settings.

Smashing Magazine wrote about the disappearance of creativity in web design and development. They speak of templates, The Grid and "rules" about web design inhibiting creative design. The author concludes that technology is killing creativity to a certain extent, but it's not dead. It's becoming the battle of machine vs. man, where man can win based on imagination (if we're willing to nurture it).

It's Killing Our Content

Lack of originality is one thing with content, but technology is also accused of promoting lazy communication and diminishing our creativity in that area. Check out what The Guardian has to say:
"In fact, the web has done a great deal to kill people's creativity. From the use of emoji in lieu of words, to the proliferation of pre-determined functions to express our views - liking, sharing, and, in some cases, disliking. These new universals of human interaction promote efficient - but lazy - behaviours so that we can devote more time to consuming more content."
Creativity Scores Are Dropping

Newsweek reported on the findings of a recent study that indicated that while intelligence scores have steadily risen, creativity scores have been declining since 1990. The implications of this are sweeping as they say:
"The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 "leadership competency" of the future. Yet it's not just about sustaining our nation's economic growth. All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions..."
While they haven't yet conclusively determined what is behind the score drop, they did have this to say with regard to technology:
"One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing video games rather than engaging in creative activities."
Technology is Enhancing Creativity

Ok, we can't really argue that technology has facilitated a glut of copycat content, killed conversation (even at dinner!) and provided a constant source of entertainment where otherwise boredom may prompt creative thought. Is there a case for technology enhancing creativity?

Information Doesn't End Creativity

Even with all the data we have available and the content already out there, we still need innovation and creativity to know what to do with it. Technological innovations themselves require creative thought to get them going, otherwise how would we end up with Google, Uber or Air BnB?

Another example lies in marketing; we have all kinds of "big data" available to make narrowing down a market much more accurate than it was previously, yet even if you identify a new market or segment, you're going to have to be innovative about how you capture them.

Technology Can Help Nurture Creative Talent

Technology has expanded the boundaries of what's possible with creative pursuits such as movie-making, music and graphic design. This has provided more scope for creativity, possibly even invited more participants to join in.

Look at YouTube videos or even content on Instagram - these are accessible platforms that allow anyone to participate and create.

For professionals, look at examples such as CGI in movies or tools created to make graphic design more accessible, the online platforms to promote that content. That accessibility runs across the gamut of creative pursuits. Prior to the internet, the public may have only been exposed to those deemed by "experts" to have creative prowess. With the internet, the curtain is lifted and more people are discovered online every day. Artists like Bach and Van Gogh were not famous in their own lifetimes, whereas if they were alive today, the chances are they would be well-known.

Does this exposure help overall creativity? Well, it certainly helps to spark ideas in others and to expose them to more avenues for mentoring, training and creative growth themselves.

As The Guardian puts it: "technology deserves some credit for lifting the institutional and bureaucratic barriers that often limit creative talent."

Technology Sparks Communication

This may sound like the opposite to what's going on when everyone has their phones in front of their faces, but technology is sparking communication in other ways. You can chat with people across the world, share ideas and information and generate creative ideas. Online knowledge has launched the creative careers of many - look at the freelance economy as an example.

What's the Answer?

You can safely have a healthy debate to argue both sides, so where does that leave us? Technology is here to stay and only continues to advance, so perhaps one of the most sensible arguments is for a balanced consumption of technology and information, much like how we view our diets.

There is the thought that our primitive ancestors benefited from taking in as much information as possible - it would have been necessary for survival to notice everything about their surroundings. The difficulty now is that in an age of information overload, our brains need to be trained to avoid the glut and filter only what is needed. This fits in with what we know about needing to nurture the right environment for creativity.

David Ryan Polgar presents the idea of the "Mental Food Plate", a kind of balanced diet for the brain. Part of this concept involves being mindful about what you do consume and exercising your "mental muscles."

Final Thoughts

There are good arguments to be made for both sides of this debate. Yes, we're seeing evidence, such as lower creativity scores, which may point the finger at technology. We know people are spending more time distracting themselves on electronic devices and possibly inhibiting the creativity, which can come from boredom and letting thoughts wander.

On the other hand, technology has allowed developments in all kinds of creative pursuits that have pushed boundaries from where they were before. It has also made many forms of creativity and the knowledge needed to pursue them more accessible than it was for previous generations.

It's currently a debate that is in need of further studies, but one thing most can agree on is the need for balance. If you want to nurture your creativity, you need to look at how you balance the impacts of technology and information with the mental space needed to create.

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When was the last time you talked to someone on the bus, in a waiting room or any other "waiting" kind of place in public? The chances are that it has been a while. If you're waiting somewhere, your phone is in your hand and the entire waiting area looks something like this...

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https://www.fosi.org/good-digital-parenting/how-technology-helps-us-our-daily-lives/

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https://giuseppegragusa.wordpress.com/2018/03/21/unit-2-draft/

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https://www.youthvoices.live/2018/02/09/is-technology-limiting-creativity-pt-1/

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https://www.designorate.com/how-social-media-affects-creativity/

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https://www.designorate.com/how-social-media-affects-creativity/