Humanity Faces “An Entire Generation Without The Capacity For Empathy” ~ Dr Devra Davis

The following clip features an urgent warning by Dr Devra Davis – author of Disconnect – during a video interview prior to an event in June 2013 entitled “Cell Phones and Wifi – Are Children, Fetuses and Fertility at Risk?”.

Here is a transcription of Davis’s comments in the video:

“Recently, South Korean scientists diagnosed a growing number of children in that country with digital dementia.  This refers to the fact that the left hemisphere of their brain is over-developed and they are relying on digital devices so that they do not know how to remember phone numbers and they don’t know how to do hand-writing.

“What the concern is here is that if you over-develop one part of the brain and under-develop the other, the opportunities to learn certain things – maths, music, hand-writing – are really limited and you should ideally do them at certain early times of life.

“These children are permanently damaged.  That is the fear that scientists around the world have – that reliance on digital devices at young ages is causing brain damage in these children.

“The left hemisphere of the brain is the part that we rely on for understanding knowledge.   The right hemisphere is the part that we rely on for empathy and judgement; the ability to anticipate the consequences of action.

Think about what it means to have an entire generation around the planet that has not developed the capacity for empathy.”

Rewiring the brain; are we now creating a planet devoid of empathy and compassion? Who benefits – those who are profit-hungry or those who are just hungry?

Davis’s warnings follows recent comments made by neuroscientist Professor Susan Greenfield, reported here, who argues that new digital technologies are rewiring the brain’s frontal cortex – the area of the brain responsible for cognitive analysis and abstract thought.

They also follow publication of a document by Dr Aric Sigman – a Fellow of the British Psychological Society – entitled “The Impact of Screen Media: A Eurovision for Parliament” which presents an extensive compendium of evidence that screen-time can damage not only children’s cognitive functions but also affect the physiology of the brain – irrespective of the content being watched. The paper is a must-read for parents, responsible citizens, law and public policy makers around the world.

The Impact of Screen Media – by Dr Aric Sigman

If, as is suggested, we are rewiring the brains of our young and creating a generation of people with no capability to empathise with others, one question we must ask is whether there are parts of our society that would benefit from such developments. Another is whether we can we alert enough people to the damage being wreaked on the minds of our future generations – tomorrow’s captains of industry, care givers and government representatives – before it is too late.

Where we go from here is up to you. Please take action and share this information with others.

Learn more about the event at which Dr Davis presented

Dr Davis joined Hugh Taylor, MD, Martin Blank, PhD, David Carpenter, MD, Camilla Rees, MBA and Frank Clegg – the former CEO of Microsoft Canada who now runs Citizens for Safe Technology (c4st.org) at the 1st public forum in the U.S. on EMF effects on Children, Fetuses and Fertility in Stonington, CT, June 2013. The event was co-sponsored by ElectromagneticHealth.org and Environmental Health Trust. A summary of the findings, which we will be posting separately, can be found >here<.

ADDENDUM: Please consider adding your support to the following petitions – the first seeks to bring light a direct threat to our website, the second is in relation to the threats faced by our bees from EMFs.

Esoteric websites:

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/uk-prime-minister-david-cameron-stop-the-unnecessary-censorship-of-esoteric-websites-and-web-forums

And bees:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Change_SmartMeter_installation_and_regulate_Cell_Phones

6 Comments
  1. Steiner schools ask parents that children have an absolute minimu of screen time until their teens.

  2. I can’t imagine anyone with the slightest awareness of the world around us not recognising the unfortunate truth of this article/video.

    We have lived with hi-tech gadgets, not to mention dumbed down education, for long enough to see the regrettable results on humans and society at large. Radiation aside, scientific evidence keeps showing us ad nauseam the damage being done to our brains from relying on gadgets to manage every aspect our lives. What I don’t see is counteractive measures being instituted on a noteworthy scale. I see only the present picture getting progressively worse.

    Researchers say Western IQs have dropped over the last century and that TV makes kids dumber. Does anyone over the age of thirty or thirty-five really need to be told this about kids and TV? And what of the stark evidence of ever-diminishing emotional intelligence?

    Global corporations now dictate the quality of our lives, and many of us are scratching our heads and wondering how we got here. Evidently we got here because we had our heads buried in the sand and didn’t know it.

    How do we change the picture? It’s almost as if we are waiting for ‘someone’ to come along and save the day, while the train wreck of how we live piles up increasingly. Yet isn’t our ‘waiting’ the problem itself? Does anyone else feel as I do that hoping someone who really cares is going to come along and make the hard decisions for us is ever so slightly ludicrous? All the same, believing in a saviour does seems to be a pattern with humans that lets us out of individual responsibility. The only problem with this pattern is that the only ones making the decisions are the one who always have … that is, the greedy, the powerful and the shamelessly immoral.

    I don’t want big corporations telling me how to live. I certainly don’t want government telling me how to live intelligently, especially since ‘intelligence’ is not something I associate with government.

    So when do we jump off the corporate treadmill-to-hell that we’re on? When do we stop talking about living with more care and responsibility and simply DO it? When does individual responsibility kick in?

    I know someone in my neighbourhood who is bringing up four kids, currently ranged aged sixteen to six. Jane has raised her children without television or hi-tech gadgets in the home and sends them to a computer-free school. She firmly believes their use of technology can come when there are adults. Right now, while their brains are developing, she feels these gadgets should have no place in their everyday lives. Four more able, active, intelligent, well-spoken and extraordinarily self-possessed kids I’ve never met. It’s refreshing to talk to kids like that and realise their thoughts and opinions don’t come from a TV show or from their peers, and also to be made marvellously aware they’re not products of corporate advertising, programmed to think only in terms of ‘I want, I want, I want.’ In raising her kids as she is, Jane is allowing them to develop (among many other positive things) CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS — a necessary life skill that’s all but dead in anyone raised on technology.

    Jane is a glowing example of someone not prepared to let the government tell her how to bring up her kids. I had no idea computer-free schools even existed. That they do, tells me there must be a demand for them, that there are more parents out there like Jane than I had supposed.

    For everyone of you living your life with thought and care, or raising your kids with love, thought and care, I applaud you. You are heroes in our world. It’s time we all stopped making excuses about why we’re part of the prevailing problems afflicting society and start making healthier and more responsible choices about how we live instead. It’s time to end the prattle and JUST DO IT.

  3. I am glad there are some computer-free schools. It should be better known to give parents choice.

  4. Even worse than this “digital dementia” is the damage which WIFI inflicts on the DNA in the ovaries of young girls. This means that not only their children, but their grandchildren, and future generations after that, will all suffer, exponentially, from various congenital diseases, handicaps, and retardation. We must all read, and distribute everywhere, the warning written by retired expert Barrie Trower, entitled: “Humanity At The Brink” – August 24, 2013. He also asks the loaded question: “Is WIFI thalidomide in the making?”
    Abstract: “As stated by University Researchers, Government Scientists and International Scientific Advisors; a minimum of 57.7% of schoolgirls exposed to low-level microwave radiation (Wi-fi) are at risk of suffering stillbirth, foetal abnormalities or genetically damaged children, when they give birth. Any genetic damage may pass to successive generations.” http://rense.com/general96/trower.html

  5. where’s the article gone? things keep disappearing, especially off this site….

    • Don’t know Jake – investigating.