The emotional tax of technology and how to go cold turkey with our phones

Neuroscientist and bestselling author Sarah Baldeo joins CTV News Edmonton's Kent Morrison to discuss screentime and the emotional tax of technology.

A landmark trial began on Monday in Los Angeles, Calif., with social media giants Meta and YouTube defending against allegations that their online platforms are intentionally addictive.

• Google, Meta, push back on addiction claims in landmark social media trial

In his opening statement on Monday, lawyer Mark Lanier compared social media platforms to casinos and addictive drugs. The Los Angeles Superior Court trial is seeking to hold Instagram owner Meta and Google’s YouTube responsible for alleged harm to children who use their products.

This trial has sparked conversations about our own relationships with our phones. On Friday, neuroscientist and best-selling author Sarah Baldeo spoke virtually with Kent Morrison on CTV Your Morning Edmonton to discuss the impacts screentime, generative AI, and technology have on our brains.

“Neuroscience shows that emotional communication relies on multiple systems. Mainly in language – Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, which process language – and the oldest part of your brain, which processes emotions,” Baldeo said in the interview when asked how texting in particular changes our brain.

“When we reduce communication – so just texting with each other and (using) emojis and abbreviations – we are underutilizing those neurological systems in the brain, and the result is we see this decline in the hormone linked to trust and bonding, which is called oxytocin.”

The end result of separating language from emotions and hiding behind a screen when you text are feelings of loneliness, according to Baldeo.

“So social isolation doesn’t just come from being by yourself, it comes from communicating with zero emotional depth,” she said.

Baldeo said major university programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, and Stanford in the United States have also been researching how generative AI affects emotional perception, including feelings like boredom, frustration and validation.

The neuroscientist says it is important to realize that artificial intelligence does not have emotions, and our “over reliance on generative AI is skewing brain activity,” which can sometimes be for the better and sometimes for the worse.

“I always remind people it’s not sentient. It’s not self-aware,” Baldeo said, adding that humans are built to mimic.

“When we spend a lot of time communicating with AI, we start to mirror the tone. We start to summarize people’s feelings in the same way.”

Baldeo said in her own research labs, she says they have seen heavy generative AI users “struggling” to figure out how other humans process emotions, especially with disagreements and silence.

“The concern is we really need to be careful not to outsource our emotional processing for AI,” she explained. “It just makes humans avoid emotions altogether because they’re used to AI not pushing back to them.”

“They don’t want to talk to other people.”

In her book titled 100 Ways To Future-Proof Your Brain, Baldeo offers tips to go cold turkey on technology.

She outlined four main tips in her interview with Morrison, saying you should limit screentime by app and not just by hours. That means setting specific time limits for each app, like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Baldeo also says to keep your phone out of reach as much as possible, especially before bedtime in order to take a break from doom scrolling and stimulation before sleep.

She also recommends reintroducing “complicated communication” into your life, including phone calls, voice notes, FaceTime, and in-person meetings.

Lastly, her final tip is to pause before you go to generative AI and technology for answers and advice, like when you have an argument with your spouse.

“AI doesn’t know who you are. It doesn’t have lived memory,” Baldeo said. “It might seem like it does, but you really, really want to try to think about the answer to these emotional questions before you replace it.”

Baldeo’s book can be purchased at Indigo Books, or you can connect directly with her at sarahbaldeo.com.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Kent Morrison