typJo

With Twitter feeds, Google Reader, and text messages, my attention span for reading is short. I scroll through my RSS feeds, click on the most interesting articles, look at the picture, and click on the star to store the article for future reference (i.e. recipes). Now a days, I can’t get past more than a few sentences or a paragraph before clicking on another article or setting down a book. It’s a bad habit, and I thought it was just me. It most definitely not. 

Conversations over tonight’s dinner with my suitemates (“suities”) confirmed the fact that I was not alone in this ADD behavior. Our discussion shifted to the topic of my worries, today’s methods of communication and the size of our brains. A few days ago, (while I was scrolling through my RSS feeds on Google Reader), I read an article on GOOD, “Why It’s Good That Your Brain Is Shrinking.” Our brains are shrinking to the size of tennis balls, making our brains “leaner and more efficient”. The interesting article that stimulated the GOOD feed said that: 

They found that brain size decreased as population density increased.

“As complex societies emerged, the brain became smaller because people did not have to be as smart to stay alive,” Geary told AFP.

Population density struck me, especially after having a conversation in my studio about density and specifically the density of Mexico City. (When more and more people are moving into cities, what happens to those rural areas? Who will provide us with the crops that we need to survive?) Is this a connection to why human brains are getting smarter? The shift back to the dense living? 

I personally enjoy living in dense environments after my experience in Hong Kong two years ago and last summer in Shanghai. Every moment in the city is filled with surprises and interactions, like getting on a subway, running into a friend, and visiting an art museum together. There are just so many more opportunities for social connectivity and interaction. I can see how these activities are exercising our brains, but is this instantaneous pleasure of doing things so quickly really making our brains more efficient. Does efficiency necessarily mean smarter? 

If the density of cities is impacting the efficiency of our brains, then architects and urban planners deserve more credit than they get.