“Digital dementia”: Is that why I can’t recall what Mandela said? Emma Thomasson

Emma Thomasson in Cape Town on March 10, 1998, covering talks between then German President Roman Herzog and Nelson Mandela.

I met Nelson Mandela and I can’t remember anything about it. I have met and interviewed many interesting people during my two decades as a journalist in South Africa, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. I struggle to recall much of what they said. Sometimes I feel like my long-term memory has been wiped clean. I have been worried for a while that years of working in a high-stress job, and rarely properly switching off, could be damaging my brain. I suspect I might be suffering from what German neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer calls “digital dementia” – the result of many years of heavy smartphone use.

I know I am not alone. In fact, I believe that journalists and other early-adopters of Blackberries could be canaries in the coalmine for wider society when it comes to digital burnout, as we have been “always on” for much longer than most people. I fear this is a trend that will only spread across the rest of society as smartphone use catches up with everybody else.

Some scientists say there is not enough evidence yet for firm conclusions about smartphones but others are sounding the alarm. In her book “Cyber Effect”, Irish psychologist Mary Aiken says society cannot afford to wait for hard evidence before we act to limit the damage. Doctors are starting to probe the impact, and I happen to be one of their guinea pigs.

“Sand, plate, butter”, I said, repeating random words read out by an electronic voice on the hospital computer. After that, my mind went blank. “Take your time,” the nurse told me. “You have a minute to remember the rest.” It was no use. Even though I had heard the list of 12 words twice, I could only recall a handful of them, even after the list was repeated. I didn’t perform much better when the nurse asked me to name as many animals as possible in a minute. “Dog, cat, spider, lion, tiger, squirrel,” I said, and then my mind froze again. I was mortified, but the nurse tried to reassure me, saying it wasn’t uncommon to seize up when you are put on the spot. The memory tests were part of a half day I spent being measured and probed at Berlin’s biggest hospital after I was chosen at random to take part in a major German health study. I also answered detailed questionnaires on subjects ranging from my diet to physical activity, Internet use and whether I play an instrument. The results were all reassuringly normal, apart from the memory test, for which my report was inconclusive.

I first carried a journalist pager in South Africa in 1997 (for the youngsters out there, a pager is a small box we used to clip to our belts which would buzz when a short message arrived). At night it sat on the bedside table and vibrated when government officials or the police wanted to alert the media to the latest drugs raid or gangland shooting in the townships outside Cape Town – or a news conference with Mandela. When I moved to Berlin in 2000, we had a shared Blackberry which was carried by the journalist on call. It is hard to believe it now, but back then, when we were out of the office, we were really off line, apart from texting on our flip-case Nokias.

I got my first own Blackberry when I became chief correspondent in Amsterdam in 2004 and have been a smartphone addict ever since. The formal memory test at hospital was just the latest warning that my mind might not be in the best shape. As journalists, particularly ones who work for news agencies, we are paid to process information quickly, spot the most important facts and summarise large quantities of data. Those skills are still intact, but I sometimes find myself struggling to remember what I wrote about last week, or even this morning, not to mention further back in time. When Nelson Mandela died in 2013, Reuters colleague Luke Baker wrote a touching piece about meeting the great man back in 1998, including lots of details about who was there and what was said. I suddenly realized that I had also been at the same event, and had also shaken Mandela’s hand but I had no recollection of anything else. There is no way I could have written the same kind of article even though covering Mandela in South Africa is probably the highlight of my career. (I was somewhat reassured when Luke, now our bureau chief in France, told me he keeps a diary which had helped with writing the piece).

I don’t think my problem is unusual. Colleagues stride purposefully across the office to speak to me and forget what it was they wanted on the way. I catch myself losing my train of thought as I switch between email, the Reuters editing system, a blinking Eikon screen or Twitter. I have always been a skilled multitasker, but I increasingly worry that it could be a curse rather than a blessing, especially in a world with so many potential distractions. One colleague has been diagnosed with “tech neck”, the gradual fusing of vertebrae in her spine from too many years spent bent over her phone and laptop. Another has told me the round-the-clock demands of running a Reuters bureau make it far more stressful now than it was a decade ago. Ariana Huffington, the founder of the Huffington Post news site, passed out when she was on the phone and checking emails in 2007 and woke up with a fractured cheek bone. She is now an advocate of “digital detox”, arguing that many people take better care of their phones than they do of themselves.

Neuroscientist Spitzer believes that overusing technology can undermine short-term memory. He is particularly concerned about damage to the neuroplasticity, or brain flexibility, of children and young people. Some scientists accuse Spitzer of relying too much on anecdotal evidence. They question whether the impact is only negative, or permanent, as with age-related dementia. German psychiatrist Jan Kalbitzer, who is studying the impact of smartphone and internet use on mental health, argues that playing up the dangers could make us paranoid, which will not help find constructive ways to manage our use of new technology. A senior executive of a major social network recently brushed off my concerns in private, saying “So I suppose you think black-and-white television was better than colour?”

Others in the tech industry are more cautious. Steve Jobs limited his kids’ access to the iPads he designed. Former Facebook President Sean Parker recently expressed regret that the social network was designed to exploit “a vulnerability in human psychology”, saying: “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.” Apple Inc shareholders are urging the smartphone maker to take steps to address what they say is a growing problem of young people getting addicted to iPhones.

I encourage my sons to call me out as a “Smombie” whenever I pick up my iPhone – a new word coined in Germany, short for “Smartphone Zombie”. They are just as drawn to digital devices as I am but they grudgingly accept – for now – my hard line. They have a half an hour limit per day on the iPad, and I have denied my 10-year-old’s request for a phone. My son’s friends feel so sorry for him that they have even discussed clubbing together to buy him one. But after seeing the data on the steep rise in depression and anxiety among young people that coincides with the advent of the smartphone, I’m going to continue the fight. I am pretty convinced that being a “Smombie” contributed to my own burnout and depression a few years ago that I describe in my previous blog.

Some governments and companies are also worried about the impact on employees’ health. France introduced a “right to disconnect” this year, which allows employees to ignore work emails outside of office hours. The country is also introducing a ban on phones in schools for children under 15. Big German firms like Volkswagen and Daimler have experimented with steps to cut down on evening emails. A survey by insurer Axa shows that four out of five Brits could be suffering from burnout as a result of stress, which it sees as strongly linked to the “always on” culture. In Spain, Axa agreed with employees this year on a right to turn off company phones or not answer work-related calls out of working hours.

That might seem impractical for a news organization. But we have been running a 24-hour operation since well before the advent of the smartphone, including with overnight desks and on-call staff. Just because it is now technically possible for all of us to be reachable 24-7, does that necessarily mean we should be? The German works council which represents Reuters journalists has just agreed with local management on a policy which says that reporters should not be required to use their smartphone outside regular working hours, although nobody should be prohibited from doing so either. “Everyone should examine their own behavior and ask themselves if they want to be on stand-by all the time. Even if we like to work: everyone needs breaks and rest periods in which they can and should switch off,” the policy states.

Ultimately, I guess, it’s up to all of us – reporters and managers – to think about what is really essential in terms of being on stand-by and what is simply habit, so that we get the downtime we need while making sure we don’t miss stories that matter.

I know I feel better since I cut down my smartphone use, though I am still guilty of reading mails and news late at night and first thing in the morning. But I worry about all the other “Smombies” out there, particularly the next generation of digital natives like a young colleague of mine who admitted she sometimes wakes up at 3am and checks her “likes” on Instagram. 

Emma Thomasson is a senior correspondent, based in Berlin. Emma joined Reuters as a trainee in London in 1995, then had postings to Germany and South Africa as a correspondent before leading the bureaus in Amsterdam and Zurich. She is more attuned to the stresses and strains of real-time financial news than covering conflict, but has also helped out in bureaus including Jerusalem, Brussels and Vienna and worked on the desk in Dubai during the Iraq war. Emma is a member of the Reuters peer network.

This blog first circulated internally on Jan 23, 2018.

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