Many observers of contemporary media have noticed that over-exposure to Internet, television, and other media can impair learning, and particularly impede the development and function of the “executive” or control system of the neocortex. The neuroplasticity of the brain—its ability to change structurally on the basis of experience—can result in lower executive brain function as easily as it can enhance these abilities. Everything depends on the nature of the experience and practice in which the brain engages, whether executive control is encouraged or discouraged. In its early days, television was accurately described as a “boob tube” because it is so passive, sucking the brain into a state of absorption and suspension of active self direction.  Films do the same thing.  Absorption is not entirely negative, however, and in fact is associated with creativity and imaginative capacity. These are some of the positive aspects of ADHD, which leads us to associate electronic immersion not only with attention disorder but also intensity of experience and ability to fantasize. As with many brain functions, what is needed is the ability to move back and forth flexibly between complementary states, in this case between passive absorption and active self direction toward a conscious goal.

Media technology, and video games in particular, can be set up to approach this optimum flexibility.  Brain training games like Torkel Klingberg’s Cogmed and Adam Gazzaley’s Neuroracer have been shown to improve not only the core capability being trained (working memory, etc.) but also to “transfer” to more distant abilities like mathematics.  Another example of this sort of technology, which we use in our office routinely, is Jeff  Carmen’s “HEG” temperature neurofeedback. An infrared sensor is attached to the forehead to monitor prefrontal cortical activity (because temperature is a waste product of neural activation and therefore can track it in real time). A movie is played simultaneously, controlled by brain temperature such that the film turns off when temperature goes down below a moving threshold, to be replaced by the image of a thermometer that must be made to rise above threshold to reinstate the movie. This, in turn, lets the prefrontal system go back off line again, and the process continues, teaching the brain how to notice its state and regulate it appropriately. The result may be both a training effect (prefrontal control gets stronger) and improved metacognitive ability to monitor and regulate states of absorption. However it works, we find HEG to be useful in treating some of the core deficits of ADHD. It is an example of how media technology can not only weaken our ability to focus attention, but, when used intelligently, can just as effectively strengthen it.