Popcorn Brain

Do You Have It? How Can You Recover?

By Amy Barr

Do you have popcorn brain? I bet you do. I certainly do. I didn’t invent this disease. It is an affliction that causes problems for most of modern humans. It is a pervasive affliction that causes daily troubles for all of us. Popcorn brain can drastically change one’s life trajectory and damage our relationships even though most don’t know they have the problem.

Popcorn brain is not caused by a pernicious virus. We can’t blame too many sweets, too few vitamins, too much food dye, nor even popcorn. The main symptom of popcorn brain is that you are easily distracted and will have difficulty focusing on one task at a time. You’ll find it is impossible to put aside technology, even for one or more waking hours. 

The average sufferer plays music while he is trying to perform an intellectual task like homework, studying, writing, or reading. If the list stopped there, that's not so bad. Now he adds a constant stream of notifications from social media accounts, playing apps, sharing funny videos, watching TV, and grabbing snacks during the few hours set aside to get work done. 

Popcorn brain feels productive because we are so busy. Popcorn brain fools us (and others) into thinking we are getting stuff done when we are not. Besides doing a poor job on mental tasks you also suffer from an intolerance for being bored even for a moment. Even the smallest lapse in activities means you will get distracted from even your distractions. 

Popcorn brain means you may never have a single creative moment in your life. All day long, your poor brain pops and pops and pops, looking for the next imposed impulse from a dozen sources simultaneously. You will constantly feel overwhelmed, over-scheduled, unproductive, and uncreative. 

What are the causes of popcorn brain?

There’s no way to soft sell this so you better sit down. Your sophisticated expensive time-saving technology is to blame. Those who don’t have computers (phones, tablets, whatever) don’t have popcorn brain. Their lives tend to be a full expression of focus, effort, creativity, and productivity. To remind myself that such a life is possible, I drive through one of the two Amish communities near my house. It is clear which houses are Amish and which are "English" not because the Amish have no power lines. Amish houses are dynamic, busy, well-tended, and full of life.They are able to easily accomplish daily chores with plenty of time for social time, community events, and opportunities for volunteer work. Their mental, physical, and spiritual health is robust.

Meanwhile popcorn brain spreads like wildfire in the modern world because the addiction is real. The mere thought of unplugging or living with minimal technological input likely made you feel uncomfortable or indignant. How horrible! Don’t they get bored? Unlikely but when they do, they also get creative unlike the rest of us.

How does popcorn brain change lives for the worse?
Drive through any modern neighborhood. You’ll find yards are empty and untended, playgrounds are sparsely used, and even joggers or dog walkers don’t just complete that one task. They listen to music, check texts at stop lights, and look to count steps, their heart-monitor app., and their social media.
Many studies and my own experience as an educator prove that that the average I.Q. is dropping, and our population is getting dumber by the day. Student assignments that should take 20 minutes now take 90 minutes between the constant distractions. Compare what an average high school graduate knows now and what was expected from an 18-year old 100 years ago! Visit parts of the world that enjoy limited technology and compare their productivity and personal skills with your own. Friends, it isn’t pretty. Popcorn brain is so serious that most of us will labor decades to master skills that non-tech humans can pick up at age 16 simply because our days, creativity, and minds are squandered for nothing.
How many artists, writers, and musicians will never develop their arts because they never once get bored enough to paint that mural, finish that novel, or form the muscle memory needed to become great at their instruments of choice? How many people that are wired to be carpenters, gardeners, inventors, linguists, dancers, or scholars will instead spend their lives doing none of that because they can’t find the time?   

How to Combat Popcorn Brain

If technology has caused this crisis, limiting, or eliminating it will cure it. Ouch.

Like many of you, I can’t get rid of the necessity for screen time because that’s how I make a living. Students are in the same boat until further notice, alas. I am working on some disciplines to limit myself.

Habits die hard so start with reduction. Diminish technological demands even while employing technology. Too many tabs, apps, videos open at the same time shrinks your ability to focus. If you give yourself an hour to finish an academic job, break it into 30 minutes and then close everything but your appropriate app and maybe some music to drown ambient sounds. Don’t play music with lyrics because your popcorn brain will tell you to sing along! At the 30-minute mark—if you have remained focused—enjoy a short non-technology reward or set the timer for 5 minutes to check texts, email, etc., before closing all those tabs again. Don’t go over that limit. Set the timer for 30 minutes again and repeat. Like learning to lift weights, you’ll need to build up to 60 minutes and then 90, 120, etc. 

Learn to MEGABATCH or work on getting a lot done in one time block. Now that you’ve tuned up your ability to go stretches of time with limited technology input, eliminate tech for longer stretches of time each week. Turn it all off and set a manual timer for 3 or more hours doing any one activity that needs no tech or maybe a single app. Do this at least once a week. At first pick something that you adore (reading, sports, garden work, painting) but do it for three hours with zero phone, tablet, laptop, or gadget anywhere near you. You are reconditioning your brain to go for longer and longer periods without the little addictive endorphin treats that you’ve trained yourself to seek. You’ll know when you have made progress when you can drag out a good book and read in silence for 3 hours. Soon you will need an alarm to force yourself to stop reading that good book. If you have popcorn brain, this is something you've not done for a long time.

After you’ve reconditioned your brain to focus on a single task you enjoy, now force yourself to spend three or more hours mono-tasking things you don’t like as much. Whatever you consider a chore, do it for three hours uninterrupted by anything but short necessary breaks. Make it a date with just you and that chore. You’ll soon find that something that used to take 3 hours will now take a fraction of that time. If you don’t need 3 hours, add several more chores to your list because you’ll likely get much more done.

To avoid relapses, if you mess up while megabatching by grabbing that device, reset your three hours and begin again. Your reward for making it through all three hours of mono-tasking is that sense of satisfaction over a big pile of finished projects.

More brain reconditioning behaviors:

• Don’t look at devices for the first 30 minutes that you are awake in the morning and the last 30 minutes at night.Work to extend this time as you recover from popcorn brain.
  
• When you do listen to podcasts, tutorials, classes, etc., force yourself to take notes with pen and paper instead of fiddling with 3 or 4 other things on your device.
• Take up any physical exercise that requires focus. I do yard work or gardening. Others might practice hitting a target, shooting a ball, blacksmithing, biking, roller skating, or building something.
• A little music helps improve focus, but set your device far away and pick a playlist that requires no changes. Once your device lands in your hands, popcorn brain will go pop, pop, pop. Go to great efforts to not touch tech during focus time. 
• Make room for social time. Quit (school or professional) work at a specific hour then find your family or friends to catch up on your day. Popcorn brain forces us to be unproductive until we give up or run out of time in our day. This means we miss out on much needed social interactions. Focus lets us schedule an end to work and enjoy personal time daily.
• Plan a tech-free weekend at least once a month. Avoid all screens from Friday night through Monday morning. Camp, paint, exercise, compete, create, write, read, build, garden. Focus will help you find yourself once more.
  

Students: Imagine & Invent Your Best Life

Consider Home Education in High School

By Amy Barr

"All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don't, our lives get made up for us by other people." Ursula Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin was an American author known especially for her science fiction and fantasy series that spanned a 60+ year career in producing hundreds of well-loved pieces that included translations, poetry, and literature for children in addition to her main adult series. By all measures, Le Guin was a success at what she did. This quote is especially powerful in an age when so many fall under a trance and believe the lie that a good education should be standardized. Ursula Le Guin made history as a writer, but her education suggested she should become a French teacher. Instead, she learned to imagine a different life and then she invented it. 

Young people are expected to plot a plan for higher education followed by career. We adults ask them to choose their life road well before they know how to count the cost of taking that trip. With limited experience dealing with life (or the universe, or everything else), students are called on to complete a standardized course of study but yet—miraculously –emerge at high school graduation with exceptional interests, noteworthy personal assets, and ambitious plans to set them apart from all their peers who have also had a very similar course of study, the same standardized exams, and the same AP classes.

Maybe All the Adults Have Lost their Minds?

No wonder anxiety and depression are on the rise with our teens. The conventional path toward adulthood consists of a maddening swirl of collecting good grades, getting a nice selection of AP classes, tossing in some music (art, writing, martial arts, basketball, etc.), marking a few hours in volunteer work, and maybe picking up a part time job. Don’t forget to spend much of ages 17 and 18 applying to colleges and scholarships while we fuss at them for not taking advantage of social or faith opportunities. 

This manic method is marketed as today’s fail-proof path to success. We ask them to do everything fast, furious, while taking top marks but we often send them into adulthood before most of them know how to use a bank account, cook a meal, clean the house, do laundry, mow the yard, or change a tire. That’s just how the first semester at college goes. Soon they’ll wonder why they don’t know how to pay taxes, save for a mortgage, work through a rental contract, deal with medical paperwork…stress!

How can students power their way through a standard transcript with standard classes (or accelerated versions of the same) but yet somehow emerge from their high school years as uniquely gifted and empowered individuals who have a strong sense of self when they’ve mainly only experienced no more and no less than their comparable peers.

What’s the solution?

Educating at home allows both parent and student to create a unique and personalized education for your truly unique child. Students who are excellent at a subject don’t need to slog their way through 4 years (5 days a week) of the same bland stuff if it can all be done in one year. Students who have more control over pace, content, and subject matter not only have a far better education in high school, but will have a far better understanding of self afterwards. 

Give your creatives time to be creatives from a young age. Give your STEM kids more time to problem solve and invent. Give your hands-on kids quality time working with hands!

Many families do a beautiful job of educating their own children right up to high school and then they put the student in a classroom for a “better standardized education.” While I know there are many more decisions at play in sending otherwise home educated students to a brick-and-mortar school for high school, in the end the biggest reason is that parents don’t feel they are up to the challenge. They lament that they don’t remember a thing about Calculus, French, or how to write a research paper! They wonder how to educate through high school. I can confirm, you home educators will do very well. Let’s talk about it why:

1.    Home educators are Resourceful.

Most of us didn’t remember all the names of the presidents, world geography, or even the basics behind geometry. We get through it thanks to the mountains of homeschool resources, and free (or at least affordable) online resources and friends. Once a student hits high school the game is unchanged. Go be resourceful to find the best approach to cover topics for your student. Includes a buffet of online offerings available for subjects you simply can’t or won’t be able to master.

2.    Home Educators Build Custom Educations.

Universities—at least the good ones—want to see students with unique educations and unique life experiences. Home educators often fear that their high school student will miss out on some opportunities, topics, and coursework if they don’t have “the” standardized approach.  On the contrary, most standardized education are as bland and lifeless as it sounds.

3.    Home Educators Are Their Child’s Best Advocates.

In our classes we often have students from conventional schools who are “allowed” to join a class or two by their school administrators. If they are very lucky, somebody up the chain of command will permit these students to enrich their education with a single class but only after much begging, paperwork, and hassle. My goodness! So generous! Consider home education. The only one “granting” permission about classes, passions, interests, and speed of study will be you and your learner. YOU are your student’s best advocate and you will make all the difference.