What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?

If your childhood was anything like mine, you were probably warned on several occasions not to eat candy. Candy is not good for you. Candy will rot your teeth. Dentists, parents, they were the ultimate tagteam. They even invented an imaginary creature to bribe us into compliance. Now here I am, grown up and reading articles like this. What do you know, candy isn't all-bad after all.

Red wine is another great example of a substance that gets a bad rap when it can mean well. Rather than complete abstention, the trick is to consume in moderation, a motto that bodes well for most aspects of our lives and a mantra that has resonated in my mind as I've followed the New York Times "Your Brain on Computers Series" over the past couple months. As much as I like my dark chocolate and red wine, I'm passionate about computers and computer technologies. So when article after article I was reading that technology (the Web, computers, smartphones) was essentially destroying us as a species, I was thinking that yes, an overdose of anything can kill. But like candy, computing devices, when consumed appropriately and in moderation, are healthy and helpful.

While I do agree with some of the arguments posed by the series, I have counterarguments. At times, my logic and responses may be biased, but hey, this is my blog.

The series starts by exposing the ugly truth about our numerous technological devices: they induce stress. "Some say [technological devices] have been intrusive, increased their levels of stress and made it difficult to concentrate," says a New York Times/CBS News poll. Imminent college exams increased my stress levels and made it difficult for me to concentrate on anything else. But our education system necessitates exams.

In high school, I was heavily involved in a service organization for which urgent meetings and tasks were constantly appearing. The position was a big responsibility for anyone. And a humongous responsibility for a fifteen-year-old. In those days, I turned on my mobile phone only to make calls and checked my email maybe once a day. I cannot even begin to express the amount of stress that would come over me when I entered that inbox of twenty new emails filled with appointments and tasks to be completed ASAR (as soon as received). Signing in to my email was like checking in to a dingy hotel with no check-out date (innbox, get it now?). Each individual email was manageable, but the mass was overwhelming.

If I had an opportunity to simply glaze over each email as it entered my inbox, I would have been able to get easy tasks out of the way in my spare time and to nosh on more profound tasks rather than hurriedly attempt to accomplish everything at once. That intrusion and invasion of an immediate email notification would have significantly reduced the stress in my life.

Another article discusses technology's reshaping of the human personality into one of impatience, impulsiveness, forgetfulness, and narcissism. Taken with a pinch of salt, I am in agreement. Constantly distracted by the possibility of a new email, the primitive parts of the brain bombard the control center of the brain, which ideally is trying to concentrate on some other activity. Think about how many times you check your phone or email while reading one chapter in a textbook. By straining our working memory, our brain's ability to store and integrate ideas is compromised. Worse, what cannot be accomplished instantly annoys us to the point of playing games on our iPhones at traffic lights.

But technology like the Internet and video games also allows us to hone skills like critical thinking, hand-eye coordination, creativity, and contextual thinking. There's a time and place to use it and we have to be moderate in our consumption. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. There's no guarantee for twelve apples a day.

"Nonstop interactivity" has been cited as "one of the most significant shifts ever in the human environment." That's huge. Empathy, a revered human emotion, is withering away. We are interacting with our devices rather than our friends. This past summer, we did not have wifi access in our Barcelona hotel room. After a long day of sightseeing, my friend and I would come back to the room, relax, talk, and read books. Real, paperback books. Our next stop was a wifi-enabled hotel room in Rome. Lying in bed we would completely tune out our surroundings while checking email, IMing others, and well, making complete use of our iPhones. We would chuckle to ourselves then give telegram-like explanations for our entertainment. Sometimes I wouldn't even process that someone was speaking to me. We didn't take our books out of our suitcases in Rome. But I did catch up on a week's worth of New York Times articles.

I was not using the Internet to escape from my friend as the NYT series would suggest. I was using it to connect with the friends from whom I had been distanced by my travels. And an absent Internet was not always a good thing. Time and again, relying on directions from local passer-bys, my friend and I were sent walking miles in the wrong direction. The few times we had access to Google Maps walking directions (in beta), we arrived at our destination in a timely fashion, were less irritable, and were more energized to focus our attention.

While the NYT series accepts that "technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive," it cautions that "forfeiting downtime with digital input" could keep us from processing information. For me though, sometimes the digital input is my downtime. Consider a "Facebook break" when you're halfway through the lecture slides covered on an upcoming exam. The breaks are a great test: Between the time you study and the time you take your exam, you will be presented with a wealth of irrelevant information (what you eat for breakfast, your fashion decision, the people you see on your way to class). It shouldn't make you forget what you have studied. The (short) Facebook break is a microcosm of this irrelevant information (irrelevant to the exam, not holistically irrelevant).

Addressing the negative impact of the cognitive load the Internet "dumps" on our brains, a Bits article retorts, "When people walk down the street, they are forced to exert cognitive control and top-down attention, and all the mental effort takes a temporary toll on their brain. Based on this data, it would be easy to conclude that we should avoid the metropolis, that the city street is a hazardous place." I absolutely love this analogy. Distraction is nothing new. It's up to us to instill in ourselves methods of self control and have the sense to understand what is relevant.

Another Internet-proponent, Steven Pinker writes, "Yes, every time we learn a fact or skill the wiring of the brain changes it's not as if the information is stored in the pancreas. But the existence of neural plasticity does not mean the brain is a blob of clay pounded into shape by experience." The brain's basic functions are not "revamped." Our brains are plastic, they are meant to be rewired. The cognitive changes caused by computers are yet to be determined as "good" or "bad" but greater brain activity has been found in computer-users over non-computer-users.

Pinker also reminds us that new forms of media have been wreaking havoc since the beginning of time -- the printing press, television, comic books. He lauds the new media of today. "Knowledge is increasing exponentially; human brainpower and waking hours are not. Fortunately, the Internet and information technologies are helping us manage, search and retrieve our collective intellectual output at different scales, from Twitter and previews to ebooks and online encyclopedias. Far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart."

As a series, "Your Brain on Computers" has only strengthened my view that in this increasingly technological world, humans are more in control than ever before. We choose when and how to use these gadgets. Of course computer-usage rewires our brain and shapes our personalities and behaviors. So does playing the piano. We have the power to use these devices to make our lives easier. I know better than to text and drive. If you don't, put your phone in the trunk during the ride. Blaming technology for our poor decision-making skills, inability to focus, self-inflation, and all those other shortcomings is like blaming your dog for being overweight. After all, you feed your dog.