How the City Hurts Your Brain 439
Hugh Pickens writes "The city has always been an engine of intellectual life and the 'concentration of social interactions' is largely responsible for urban creativity and innovation. But now scientists are finding that being in an urban environment impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory and suffers from reduced self-control. 'The mind is a limited machine,' says psychologist Marc Berman. 'And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations.' Consider everything your brain has to keep track of as you walk down a busy city street. A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to redirect our attention constantly so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things. This sort of controlled perception — we are telling the mind what to pay attention to — takes energy and effort. Natural settings don't require the same amount of cognitive effort. A study at the University of Michigan found memory performance and attention spans improved by 20 percent after people spent an hour interacting with nature. 'It's not an accident that Central Park is in the middle of Manhattan,' says Berman. 'They needed to put a park there.'"
Just visit Manhattan (Score:5, Interesting)
Just head to Manhattan and look at the people around you. Everyone is constantly glancing around at everything. It's not just the tourists either--very nearly every single person is constantly shifting his gaze from point to point like a coked out monkey with ADD. It's one of the things that I hate about New York.
Brain Overload (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I find it stimulating (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm feeling very ambivalent about this study. Sure, walking down a busy street requires concentration. And? If you look at it this way, it's actively improving your concentration.
The truth is that most people work in office buildings that are not that busy, and they only spend a tiny fraction of their day in a busy and distracting environment. Honestly, this sounds like a study that was trying to find evidence that supports a predetermined conclusion.
Re:Brain Underload - Brain Overload (Score:2, Interesting)
I must be even worse the pilots. Especially doing a Trans-Ocean flight, Say LHR to JFK each end completely manic, multiple commands from ATC, lots of other aircraft to watch out for, reconfiguration of the aircraft but in the Middle Several hours of not a lot.
That's one job I'd hate to do.
Re:Just visit Manhattan (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What natural setting? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not only incorrect, but it is also not the point of the original article. First of all, I will address your specific statements. Being in the wilderness is not less stressful than being in civilization. That flies in the face of our entire human history. You, a modern human, only enjoy the wilderness now as a convenience brought to you by the comforts of modern technology. Where and how do you get your food, shelter, water, safety? It is illogical to compare being run over in the street with some romanticized notion of idyllic nature, because you have been far removed from primary threats to existence such as disease, predation, exposure, and starvation.
Second, the point of the article is that urban environments are cognitively distracting compared to a natural setting. That may be true but it is also pointless. What is the base level of cognitive ability? Did the study compare attention and mental focus for individuals who are simply sitting comfortably in their home doing nothing? It stands to reason that if there is a correlation between environment and cognition, the most safe and peaceful environment would provide the best result. But I object to this kind of weakly disguised propaganda that continues to romanticize and idealize the superiority of "nature." Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being outdoors. But I have no illusions that my ability to enjoy being outdoors is ENTIRELY predicated upon the fact that my safety and well-being is facilitated by the comforts of modern human civilization and technology.
I accept the fact that I don't have the ability to be tossed into the wild and survive. I don't need to. Moreover, I don't WANT to. Why would I want to spend most of my day worrying about where my next meal is going to come from, or providing for basic safety? That is how we all lived thousands of years ago, and that is how many people in underdeveloped countries continue to live today. There is a very good reason why humans discovered the benefits of civilization long ago. The notion that civilization is evil and we should embrace nature and return to a nomadic life is yet another insult to those who live in squalor and desperation among us.
Re:Do we still need the downtown? (Score:1, Interesting)
You should be aware that the trend of moving out of inner cities has been reversed in USA as well as in Europe under the last couple of years.
As it stands you prophecy is completely wrong. The internet has done nothing to promote the trends you are predicting.
Re:Brain Underload - Brain Overload (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What a bunch of BS (Score:2, Interesting)
You're the one who's afraid of the city, though he should go outside?
I actually live in outback Australia (relatively), and here's what you need to keep an eye out for:
Spiders, we have a lot of lethal spiders, and it's almost impossible to get rid of them. I've had huge problems with spiders. This is a year round problem, I've woken up twice with spiders on my face, I'm so desensitised to it now.
Snakes, we have a lot of lethal snakes, and every year when it comes time to catch and kill them (Ever have to do that in the city?), is a dangerous time of year. They come out at the start of summer, and go for areas around the house.
Kangaroo's, when I drive home from a mates and it's at around 2am, I need to have my wits about me, as kangaroos are all over this area. They randomly jump out in front of your car, and will write your car off. This has happened to a lot of friends of mine, and I always have to be weary of it.
Then you got all sorts of other shit, especially if you want to go in the water.
Long story short, I live out here, and there's a fuck load to keep an eye out for. When I go into the city, I don't worry half as much.
Re:What natural setting? (Score:3, Interesting)
In the wilderness you can rely on your ears and even your nose to help alert you to danger.
In the city the only thing you got are your eyes. and that does in fact stress out the brain because it no longer has any ability to spread around the processing. Plus Humans are not Herd creatures, and we honestly are uncomfortable in a herd. Yet oversized cities stuff us into the giant herd and it stresses us out.
Yes I cant think as well when in a large herd of people. Go to a hockey or baseball game and try to think of some mathematical exercise while navigating the herd.
Now do the same in the wilderness alone.
I can do it on a hike, in fact most of my "AHA!" moments are when I am out in the wild. Hell when I'm sardine canned like we get at concerts and baseball games I can barely carry on a conversation.
Although you can clear a path around you really quick if you say loudly, "OH I'm GONNA PUKE!" suddenly everyone around you will get out of your personal space. The threat of being puked on is a wonderful thing when forced into the herd.
Re:Just visit Manhattan (Score:3, Interesting)
So city people are some kind of mental superhumans, and once removed from their highly stimulative environment, they ourperform the non-city people.
Re:What a bunch of BS (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought I was the only one who wakes up to find spiders on his face in the middle of the night. WTF. I wonder why they do that?
Duh (Score:2, Interesting)
So many faces. (Score:2, Interesting)
In my teenage years, I always had a problem remembering people's faces.
It was so bad that I actually went to a psychologist to see if it was some mild form of autism. There was no conclusive diagnoses.
Now, the interesting part is that I was living in London at the time, and commuting on the train every day through the city. I'd see thousands of new faces every day, each of which I had to recognize, then ignore. I'd never see any of them again.
Since moving out to a smaller city and driving to work, my memory for new faces has dramatically improved, to the point where I no longer need to make a special effort to remember them. It just comes naturally.
I have wondered to this day whether it was the stress of the city that lead to the failure in recognition, or whether being overloaded with so many new faces I had to immediately forget each day was too much for my poor little brain.
Re:Just visit Manhattan (Score:1, Interesting)
what the heck happened to you in new york?!
Re:What natural setting? (Score:3, Interesting)
Huh??? Your ability to sense and process that sensory input is not a function of the surrounding environment; it is mainly a function of physiology.
I'm not talking about herds. I'm talking about living in a human societies, pooling resources, and the very clear anthropological and sociological advantages to collective living. In case I am still not being understood, we humans have developed and adapted to the civilization model. That has nothing to do with going to crowded baseball games. I am trying to explain that most people who live in cities have taken for granted the clear evolutionary advantages of doing so, to the point that now we talk fondly about how wonderful it would be to live among nature again, which is bollocks. It's romanticizing the harsh reality that nature is full of hazards and stresses, and people only think of nature as idyllic because they can always return to society and fall back on technological conveniences when nature decides to, say, drop a blizzard on your head or have a jaguar rip your arm off.
Finally, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it seems that there's a logical fallacy being applied in your reasoning. That it is difficult to do math in your head while navigating a busy crowd doesn't mean the busy crowd is therefore to blame, any more than doing math is hard while you're writing an essay or doing anything else that is cognitively distracting. That's why I pointed out that the study is stupid. It's basically saying "people can't think as well when distracted." DUH. Who is arguing that? But then to take that self-evident statement and somehow place it in the context of nature vs. civilization and then conclude that we should somehow eschew city life for some idyllic nature fantasy, well that's about as stupid as anyone can get.
Re:Good exercise? (Score:1, Interesting)
Hell, if I've got something to think about and somewhere to go (either walking or driving), I'll find myself there without being aware of actively avoiding people and/or cars.
If you're not aware of actively avoiding people, how do you know you did? How do you know they didn't do all the avoiding?
A co-worker of mine was hospitalised when he was run down by a car while cycling to work. The car driver was traced, and said things like, "Oh come on, I think I'd know if I'd run over someone!" He was genuinely surprised when paint chips on his car matched the paint scraped off the bike. He assumed someone had scraped his car while it was parked. He was so focused on getting to his next job site that he didn't notice he'd turned across the bike lane and run over a cyclist.
cognitive effort (Score:2, Interesting)
Anecdotally, I've noticed that the extra cognitive effort required to get by in cities can be useful. I grew up in a fairly small town (pop. ~8000) and now live in Chicago. My friends back home who haven't moved away have for the most part seemed to me to go a bit soft, meaning I feel in conversation that I think a lot faster than they do, even with people who I once considered smarter than me. I know that some of this is self-selection (the less ambitious are less likely to move and more likely to go soft, etc.), but a lot of it seems to be that I am more often challenged intellectually and don't have the opportunity to become spacey, and spaciness is the main difficulty I'm describing. I see it especially in grocery stores, where there are far more people wandering confusedly through the aisles and being baffled by the oatmeal than there are here.
What I'm saying here is that I fully accept that an urban environment is more stressful than a rural or semi-rural one. I would just dispute the idea that that is always a bad thing. Sometimes stress can force you to stay on your toes.
Re:What natural setting? (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno about you but I feel a lot more safer crossing 5th Ave than being out in the wild where I might get mauled by a bear or some sort of big cat.
Perhaps you should recalibrate your risk perceptions, which appear to be influenced by fairy tales.
Where I used to live (it's now our cottage), there are both bears and wolves. I've never seen them, but I've found bear scat in our forest several times - it's quite different from that of the elk, deer, lynx, and so forth which also live there. Wolf scat is less distinctive, but a pack of wolves has been sighted in the area. Predators are much less numerous and more predictable than the prey animals; you're likelier to be attacked by a horny elk in rutting season than by a bear.
Crossing a city street is more dangerous than wandering in a wild forest, even a forest known to have bears and wolves. Even staying "safely" on the sidewalk, you are at a significant risk of being hit by a vehicle (drunk/distracted/demented driver, mechanical malfunction, etc.).
Humans evolved to be in communities, but not in cities. My opinion, having lived in large and small cities, and in the countryside: cities suck; big cities suck a lot more than small cities.
Re:Good exercise? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes it does. The ancient equivalent of a city would be on the veldt surrounded by predators. You are constantly on edge looking for the flash of colour which could mean you're on the menu. Your ears are straining to hear the danger signals through the constant noise. Constant exposure to such stress is very wearing and can result in various nervous malfunctions and lead to physical manifestations. Ever heard of hypertension ?
I recently (6 months ago) gave up driving a truck (18 wheeler for the US residents) because although the physical act of driving was easy, the mental stress of being abused by just about everybody else on the road led to me being pissed off the whole time. Once you get into that condition, you need serious training in Buddhism to learn to relax. I haven't had the training, and I still can't drive (even a car) without getting stressed almost immediately, and it has even affected me as a pedestrian. All this is happening to a person who in 2001/2002 drove across the US 3 times (FL -> WA, WA -> FL, FL -> CA) in a month and a half for fun, then drove almost all the way around Australia, then travelled all the way round NZ by bus. Hint: it's not the driving or travelling.
The human mind can't stand up to being attacked all the time. My condition is starting to become agoraphobic as it is impossible to go anywhere without encountering traffic. I recently spent time in Scotland [google.co.uk], well away from large population centres, and it was like a large dose of valium. I was completely relaxed within a day or so. Unfortunately I still have to earn a living so moving there permanently isn't an option right now. And not having worked for 6 months means my savings are almost exhausted and my options are dwindling to zero.
Just because you don't notice the effect, it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It is cumulative and one day it will hit you hard. Your brain gets used to the default state of mind being stress, and suddenly one day it gets stuck there. Very hard to get back from, and very hard to withstand real stress when it occurs, because you have so little energy left in reserve.
Re:What a bunch of BS (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of the biggest dangers in the wild are the animals you CAN'T see. The odds of getting eaten by a bear are low, and even most snakes are harmless. But, in addition to your fire ants, you also need to beware the evil tick! A cow-orkers wife got Lime Disease.
Re:I find it stimulating (Score:5, Interesting)
For me, it's the opposite. I find it easier to be productive at work, since there are fewer distractions.
Re:They needed to put a park there. (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides, where else would they put a park? In the middle of the countryside upstate?
The park is not nature (Score:3, Interesting)
A city park is a contrived environment intended to promote feelings of well being and safety. In reality they increase crime on their margins and are the least safe places to be in a city at night. While they have their deleterious effects they are like processed food in another way, every element is there to serve a purpose. The landscape architect believed those elements would help the user relax and as a rule they do.
A walk down a city street is like a walk in actual nature, you need to pay attention to your surroundings. Instead of being mortally wounded by a bear or a snake, you get plowed over by a feckless tourist. A small portion of your mind is at all times dedicated to the task. If you engage in some artificial mental test during or shortly after completing this task you will be a little distracted. Duh!
It goes without saying that this study says nothing about the obvious benefits to the mind of living in a city. These are primarily due to your interaction with other people who share your interest or otherwise are part of your social sphere, but are also due to smaller effects such as better overall health (the pollution is balanced by more exercise than average and much better medical care).
Re:I find it stimulating (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I find it stimulating (Score:4, Interesting)
I read this article two people were having a conference call with a speakerphone about 8 feet from me. It sucked, and I could barely focus on this article, let alone the technical article that I need to read and understand to do my job.
Distractions are bad.
Re:I find it stimulating (Score:5, Interesting)
Your arguments reeks of truthiness but turns out to not be true. It turns out that relaxing your mind and focusing on single tasks promotes good health and positive mood.
This has been scientifically demonstrated [psychosoma...dicine.org] (The quick summary of the above link, for those too lazy to dig through the reference is that researchers found that a group of people receiving some mindfullness mediation training showed improvements in mood and in immune response compared to a control group.)
If I may spin the article in this context, it seems that having a quiet mind is a very, very good thing, and that quiet, natural settings are more conducive to quiet minds that busy urban environments.
An Interesting Experience (Score:3, Interesting)
I wasn't allowed to do that again. It wasn't a coincidence that my favorite part of going to that job was riding my bike and taking a train for two and a half hours getting there (and the same amount of time coming back).
Re:Just visit Manhattan (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, it's very hard to not become one of those people. I did. But I personally can affirm the story in my personal case.
I lived in San Francisco for 7 years after university, and became accustomed to urban life - having things open 24 hours, having china town a few steps away, having everything so close and easy to get to. On the other hand I always felt distracted, stressed, and like I was unable to do half the things I wanted because of crowds, traffic, too long of lines, waiting lists for restaurant reservations, you name it. I was not being very productive as I was always thinking about the logistical ramifications.
I left. I went to the opposite corner of North America - I bought a cabin on a remote lake in north central Ontario Canada - no phone line - electricity was solar and a generator - heat was a wood stove and a fireplace - internet was via 2-way Satellite - I can get in my car and drive an hour in any given direction and see no more than 5 cars. No more lines. No more traffic. No more logistical nightmares. When your biggest concern for a week is if you should drive in for provisions on Wednesday or Thursday depending on the weather, and if there's enough firewood split to last the month out. However I did catch myself saying "When I was in SF, I could get Chinese delivery in 20 minutes, and if I wanted a part for something I was working on there were so many stores to choose from!".
I lived there for 5 years - the most productive and happy 5 years of my life - but in the end it did get a little lonely and I've now moved to the fringes of a small city (100,000 ppl) - I'm still surrounded by trees and not people - but now I'm only a 10 minute drive to stores and supplies - rather than close to 2 hours. I still feel able to think here - there's nowhere near the horrible stress of urban life.
Re:Well, no... (Score:3, Interesting)
I met up with my friend from the UK in NY this summer. He's lived many places in the UK including London and said he wouldn't mind living there for a year. A lot of it is what your expectations are. Personally, I prefer a bit more green myself. I certainly could get along there though.
About the only negative experience was that the hotdogs suck. I don't know why the NYers carp on about them so much.
Re:I find it stimulating (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure, walking down a busy street requires concentration. And? If you look at it this way, it's actively improving your concentration.
How do you figure?
Are you saying that "using" your concentration is the same as "improving" it? In that case, the article actively disagrees, pointing (very broadly) to psychological research which suggests that ability to concentrate is a limited resource.
The brain is not like a muscle which just "gets stronger" as you use it more. It's more like your eyes, which do not start seeing better the more you use them, and which may even get worse if you spend all day staring at, say, a computer monitor. It's more like a muscle which got worn down from your morning jog and cannot handle an afternoon jog.
Brains are complicated. People think that by studying more they can learn more, then they burn themselves out with studying and forget everything. Phenomena such as retrograde interference still occur, and if you didn't learn that last bit of material too well because you're tired (you used up your capacity to concentrate and kept going anyway) but that last bit of material is interfering with your recall of the stuff you learned earlier... then you're in trouble!
Seriously, brains are complicated.
Living in big cities... (Score:3, Interesting)
I can see the argument. But when I was living in a big city in Asia I felt more stimulated and motivated than I've ever felt anywhere else. I felt like there was always something going on, something to take a part in, something new to see, something to absorb.
Now I'm back in the US, back in the suburbs, and in some ways it feels like a wasteland of blandness. I live in an area where the homes are all very close together, but there just isn't much life to be found. It's all hidden away indoors.
I recall getting back and over the first few weeks feeling this sense of emptiness, similar to hearing silence. I can see where too much stimulus might be a problem, but to me it isn't much different than being bombarded by crap on TV, but I think television is worse.
The problem I see with big cities is the impersonal nature of life there, how a person can feel isolated even in the midst of millions of people. That leads to all sorts of problems. But with culture today it seems to be a problem everywhere but small towns.
To be honest, if I had the opportunity to move back I would.
Re:What a bunch of BS (Score:4, Interesting)
There are more dangerous animals that would hunt and kill you in the middle of New York city than any wild area in the world.
Actually, NYC has less murder to population ratio than even most rural areas these days.
If you were talking about Detroit, Camdem, or Philadelhia...
Re:Well, no... (Score:4, Interesting)
Around the same period, the MTA attempted to bring the first phase of the new, computerized central control system online; this was the radio coordination system, which is currently running equipment that was installed in the 1960s. The computerized system crashed when three simultaneous emergency calls were made -- a typical situation in a system with more than 400 stations and a hundred or so trains in operation at any given time -- and communication in the entire system was shut down while they reactivated the old system. Imagine, in a few years, if a fire occurs in the control center -- the entire system would be out of order until the older control rooms were unlocked and reactivated. As a case in point, there was a fire in a control room in the 1980s, much more serious than a relay room like the one at Chambers St., and a service along one of the subway lines was shut down until control could be transferred to other locations (this was a complex move at that time). No other lines were affected by the fire, because the other control rooms operated completely independently, from an electronic perspective (they are coordinated by phone).
People just assume that technology from the 1920-30s, which runs the majority of the system, must in inadequate and that upgrading it will make the transit system better. Experience shows that this is simply not true. The 1930s vacuum tube relay equipment, which is controlled with electromechanical lever machines, is remarkably reliable, and gets the job done just fine. The only real deficiency is that there is no electronic method for tracking multiple lines on a single segment of track, but this is made up for through a system of buttons installed at major station stops, which allow train operators to indicate their route to a control room when it is necessary to do so (as it is at points where lines are separated and sent down different tracks). In some cases, even that is overkill, because the control room sits at the exact point where trains stop. Computerization offers little advantage beyond more accurate accounting and schedule measurements.
I am not against the idea of more modern equipment. It is certainly the case that a computer could calculate the placement of trains in maintenance yards more efficiently than a human can, or even the placement of trains on relay tracks at locations where several lines are terminated. The current plan, however, is deeply flawed in that it seeks to centralize everything and leave the old system locked up for emergencies. Central command systems might work well on smaller systems like Chicago or Boston, but given the enormous size of the NYC transit system, it seems severely misguided; no surprise, though, since the MTA has not made many good decisions over the past few years.
Re:I find it stimulating (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a city person, and I wholly agree with the study (personally). But then again I think some degree of silence and solitude are necessary for the intellectual life (actually for focus, with is necessary for the intellectual life).
I grew up in the city, but had the good fortune of going to college in the boonies, and I could tell the difference. A 20 minute hike would put you in the woods, completely away from anyone. There were no distractions. I could actually sit and read (in a deep way, not in the leisurely way) for hours without anyone talking to me ("what are you reading" is the most damnable question ever, btw).
Part of this was because the lack of people, cars, etc... And part of it was due to the change in context. In the city we have constant reminders of our bust life, escaping the city escapes this context.
It always is nice to get out of the range of the nearest cell-tower, off the roads, and away from the mindless chatter of others.
For some reason I feel that the people who are against this study are the typical Americans who are frightened of silence since it allows introspection. Most people in cities, IMHO, exist largly as interactions, and are frightened on some level of what remains (if anything) when there is no more superfluous stimulus.
Which brings me too; why the hell is there canned music EVERYWHERE in cities?
Yes, I'm a slightly pissy misanthrope, so this might have something to do with it. And yes, I grew up in the 5th largest metropolitan area in the US, so I'm not a country boy.
Re:actually somewhat true (Score:3, Interesting)
A disproportionate number of top universities, relative to population, are in rural areas and small towns: Ithaca, New York; Urbana-Champaign, Illinois; Hanover, New Hampshire; Durham, North Carolina; Terre Haute, Indiana; etc.
That's just because their large plots of land were cheap when they were founded, or else were large areas of unused land bequeathed or granted by the government for the purpose.
Re:Good exercise? (Score:3, Interesting)
If that's not the case, then why are there so many drivers who are incredibly stressed constantly throughout the day?
Because proper cities are built to make driving stressful enough that people will just walk or take public transportation.
Re:Just visit Manhattan (Score:3, Interesting)
Second that, at least for the old world
I live in Amsterdam; I have a car to drive to family etc. outside town, but I would never think about driving anywhere within the city except for Ikea etc. A 7/7 8-22 supermarket is 20 meters away from my front door, my work is 20 minutes by bicycle or tram, depending on weather. There are hundreds of restaurants within a 30 minute walk, and I've never been put on a waiting list. Sure, sometimes one is full, but never all of them.
If I get home, it is quiet and it is our space. Noise from outside is minimal thanks to modern isolation, certainly not more than in the countryside (cows, roosters etc make a lot more noise, and cars going 100 km/h make a lot more noise than cars going 30.
Good shows and concerts have to be booked in advance, but guess what: the countryside doesn't have any shows or concerts.
I love the city, it's just a shame that the US made so many dubious design choices in a lot of theirs, although parking is usually a lot easier :-)
Re:Good exercise? (Score:3, Interesting)
You sound like you've really taken it to the extreme, but there are a few things I do that help when I start feeling the same way driving.
1) Be glad that fast/aggressive/crazy person is past you and gone. Better to let them cause an accident somewhere up ahead (hopefully with a tree) instead of with you. I also like to thank them (in my head) for catching any speed traps up ahead by going 10mph faster than me.
2) No matter how slow you have to go, it really doesn't matter. You could drive 30mph on the interstate the whole way to work and you'd still get there, and it really wouldn't take THAT long. So having to slow down for that one guy, or having to slow down because someone wont "let" you get over - who cares?
3) Lower your expectations all around. Take it slow, set cruise control, help the people around you. If you try go 15mph over the speed limit and get mad every time you can't, even for a moment, then you're going to get very stressed and frustrated very fast.
4) I've noticed that listening to talk radio rather than music helps me relax and slow down and ignore the jerks around me. Not sure why, but there ya go.
Regardless of all of that, the driver's license training and police enforcement in the US needs to focus a lot more on aggressive driving, overly slow/indecisive driving (you can take a U-turn later, dont block up traffic trying to make an illegal turn!), and keeping to the right unless passing.