Reddit reviews The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory

Sorry, that was a bit flippant. I'll note that despite that comment I have a lot of respect for South Korea's rapid industrialization and technological prowess.

In order to determine that "digital dementia" is a real phenomenon, we'd have to establish that:
a) those supposedly suffering from digital dementia have in fact suffered a decline in cognitive capacity
b) this decline has resulted from exposure to digital technology

This article doesn't provide enough details about the Korean studies to judge whether either a) or b) has been firmly established. Personally I'm more partial to Torkel Klingberg's model, according to which the exposure to modern technology is actually making us smarter, since having to handle so much information is providing significant mental stimulation. If we feel stupider this could just be an illusion created by the fact that demands on our cognitive abilities are increasing faster than our cognitive abilities are increasing in response to that stimulation.

Here's an interesting quote:

>For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem [275b] to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.

That's Socrates's critique of invention of writing.

And here's a good piece by Steven Pinker: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11Pinker.html?_r=0

The book by Klingberg: The Overflowing Brain

Edit: I didn't see gluay's comment about Spitzer's work, I'll have to take a look at that

I like this book,

http://www.amazon.com/Overflowing-Brain-Information-Overload-Working/dp/0195372883

Some material about children development and filtering:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=de&lr=&id=FbeaTXALDo4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA117&dq=information+overload+children+development&ots=RX-A992xho&sig=lSgif1u-kRGW6Kp6LVWlv1zZ5XU#v=onepage&q=information%20overload%20children%20development&f=false

And a huge chunk I admittedly did not chew fully yet:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=de&lr=&id=IyCofOJKWCwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=sensory+overload+children+development&ots=C--zUynlr1&sig=BUz3ktT8jzHbMt_Z1krLfLRMtks#v=onepage&q&f=false

Of interest re: mental disorders:

http://ajot.aotapress.net/content/55/4/416.abstract

http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/3/397.short