(This is a short follow-up read)  Re the post:

The Beady Eye Asks: Where does it end? Google.)

More and more people are taking their tablets to bed with them to surf the web, check Facebook or email before switching off the light.

Few of us need to live our lives accessible to others at all times of the day.

Text alerts, Facebook notifications, Twitter mentions, and emails are often nothing more than distractions that keep us from the world right in front of us.

They clutter our mind with nonessential information. Technology ought to serve us, not the other way around.

However technology is altered human physiology. It makes us think differently, feel differently, even dream differently. It affects our memory, attention spans and sleep cycles.

We are now hard-wired to assume our phones are ringing, even when they’re not.

In a Google-happy world, when virtually any scrap of information is instantly at our fingertips, we don’t bother retaining facts.

Some cognition experts have praised the effects of tech on the brain, lauding its ability to organize our lives and free our minds for deeper thinking. Others fear tech has crippled our attention spans and made us uncreative and impatient when it comes to anything analog.

If there are areas of our life where technology is doing more harm than good it’s bed but the idea of a technology-free bedroom is a counter-cultural thought.

However the benefits of a technology-free bedroom should not be overlooked and dismissed so quickly. The most important, intimate conversations take place in your bedroom. Couples who keep a TV OR IPADS in the bedroom have sex half as often as those who don’t.  Besides, most of our excuses can be overcome with some creative thinking.  People who spend time on social media tend to experience higher levels of envy, loneliness, frustration, and anger.

Social media interaction holds some benefit. But if we can intentionally remove these unhealthy emotions from our bedroom, it allows space for our minds to separate from the day’s activities.

Keeping your bedroom as a notification-free zone results in a more peaceful, engaged, calming environment.

Checking Facebook/Twitter before putting your feet on the floor is not living.

If you don’t want to feel like a zombie during the day, the findings are clear:

Read an actual, printed book if you must stimulate your mind before bed.

So if you’re having trouble sleeping, consider actually putting all those pesky electronics away and give your brain a chance to fully shut itself down when you’re looking for some shuteye.

To understand what critical and creative thinking is, an individual first must understand what thinking is.

There is no hard and fast rules concerning the source of creativity.

Morning people have more insights in the evening. Night owls have their breakthroughs in the morning.

Your Best Creative Time Is Not When You Think.

Dreams aren’t supposed to make any sense.

They’re just what happens when you put your head down for the night and your brain decides to bullshit you for eight hours about getting chased by Bigfoot while your teeth fall out.

With that said, dreams have been responsible for some major creative and scientific discoveries in the course of human history. A surprising number of society’s innovations have come from dreams, proving that sometimes there is the method to your brain’s madness.

For example …

The tune for “Yesterday” came to Paul McCartney in a dream..

Larry Page and Sergey Brin got the idea for “downloading the entire web onto computers”.dreamed it one night when he was 23 years-old.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Frankenstein was inspired by a dream.

Otto Loewi (1873-1961) won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1936 for his work on the chemical transmission of nerve impulses came to him in a dream.

Edison took short trips into the subconscious mind. There, he accessed ideas. Or perhaps, he bypassed the conscious mind and all its barriers to creativity

Elias Howe invented the sewing machine in 1845 dreamt it.

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) was one of India’s greatest mathematical geniuses. He made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptical functions, continued fractions, and infinite series.  According to Ramanujan, inspiration and insight for his work many times came to him in his dreams..

The history of science is full of stories of scientists claiming a “flash of inspiration” which motivated them. One of the best known is from the chemist August Kekulé (1829-1896), who proposed that structure of molecules followed particular rules. Kekulé recounted that the structure of benzene came to him in a dream, in which rows of atoms wound like serpents before him; one of the serpents seized its own tail: “the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. I came awake like a flash of lightning.

Hannibal, who many described as a military genius, based his battle plans against the Romans on his dreams.

The Periodic Table:
Nineteenth-century Chemist Dimitri Mendeleyev fell asleep while chamber music was being played in the next room. He understood in a dream that the basic chemical elements are all related to each other in a manner similar to the themes and phrases in music.

A young Albert Einstein conceived the theory of relativity in a dream.

Modern Robotics:
Dennis Hong, genius innovator at University of Virginia uses the interface of sleep and waking to access ideas.

Jack Nicklaus’ Golf Swing came to him in a dream.

Insulin, came to Frederik Banting,in a dream.

As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined to such an extent that the world is now in dire need of readers intellects – imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking.

Social media may well promote a culture of sharing, but there is little point in sharing trivia. So share this post. Your brain will thank you. 

Just in case you get the impression that I am totally against Technology. I believe technology can actually increase your intelligence.

The best way to make technology work for you instead of against you is to be smart about it—utilize it in order to allow you the time and mental energy to engage in higher-level cognitive activities, not as a crutch because you don’t feel like activating your neurons.

But don’t ask your device how to make that happen—figure that one out for yourself.