WWe're disoriented and our brains are shrinking – at least our hippocampus is shrinking. These seahorse-shaped parts of the brain are about 5 cm in size, located just above the ears, and are responsible for our spatial awareness and sense of direction. London taxi drivers are famous for taking Knowledge, a test that requires them to memorize the capital's central streets, and they have life-sized hippocampi. But in 2011, neuroscientists at University College London found that taxi drivers' hippocampi shrank significantly after they retired.
Hippocampal development may also be disrupted during childhood. Children living in urban environments rarely see the sunrise or sunset and cannot distinguish between east and west. When I volunteered to go to local schools and teach directions to children, I noticed that they had a hard time distinguishing between north and south, east and west. However, you should be able to tell the difference if you are allowed to use your phone.
Ever since Google Maps was launched in 2005 with the claim that it would help users get from A to B, and three years later when the iPhone 3G was launched with “live” location, the online tech giant The first generation of today's digitally native children would not have known what it meant to be lost. But is that a good thing? Their vision and direction, like the hippocampus, is diminished by the collusion of their online providers. Over four generations, children roamed up to six miles from home, but on average only 300 yards. Even before COVID-19, three-quarters of children spent less time outdoors than prison inmates, research has found. Many parents know that the subsequent 50% increase in agoraphobia has a significant impact on children's mental and physical health. But it also drives
biophobia
avoidance, and even fear of the natural world. When we become afraid of nature, the consequences are:
Indifference and even hostility towards environmental conservation.
No matter where your kids travel, they're probably following a blue dot on their phone screen to guide them, regardless of the world around them. Now more than ever, mobile phones allow us to have maps in the palm of our hands, but maps can be both liberating and tyrannical. Our phones map us and collect our likes and dislikes online.
The current study focuses on this so-called
Developmental topographical disorientation The same goes for mental health, as online experiences lead to digital contamination of our sense of space and place. Quite literally, we are becoming disoriented in the digital world, abandoning cognitive-enhancing tools like paper maps and magnetic compasses that allow us to move and orient ourselves in parallel to the physical world. . We have retreated from using the spatial skills that have sustained us for thousands of years. No wonder our feeling of being lost is as existential as it is directional.
To be disoriented means to be “lost in the East.” The word comes from the Latin word meaning the sun rising in the east. In ancient history, most societies were oriented primarily toward the east, the source of the sun, which gives light, heat, and life. Next we came to the west where the sun was setting. This was followed by north and south, and people determined their positions by astronomical observations of the sun's position at noon and the North Star, Polaris. Early polytheistic societies worshiped the sun rising in the east, and this tradition continues in the monotheistic Judeo-Christian faiths, which place the east at the top of the map as the place of the beginning of creation and resurrection. In the Old Testament, Creation begins in the East in the Garden of Eden. Medieval Mappa Mundi
Hereford Cathedral The upper part has East, depicting Adam and Eve in Eden, and the lower part has West. This was the orientation that defined European Christianity for over 1,000 years.
In contrast, early Islamic maps placed the south at the top, as the first converts to the faith lived directly north of Mecca. The easiest way to understand their sacred direction was to orient the map so that Mecca was “up”. We still talk about going up north and going south in the UK. This is the old hangover of understanding the four points of the compass: up and down, forward and backward, or left and right, depending on our body. South serves as a cardinal direction, just as in classical Chinese science a magnetic compass pointed south rather than north. they are called this
Ragyo“That which points to the south.” Australians know this. In 1979, Stuart MacArthur published a corrected map of the world with Australia at the top and facing south.
Source: www.theguardian.com
