How digital technologies are leaving their mark on our brains

Mind Change

Highly topical, stimulating addition to the most important debate of our time (the effects of new technology), by one of the UK's leading neuroscientists.

Greenfield asks key questions…important…should be read by technologists in particular

Greenfield is not just an engaging communicator but a thoughtful, responsible scientist, and the arguments she makes are well supported and persuasive

Greenfield’s admirable goal to provide an empirical basis for discussion is…an important one

Fascinating...highly accessible...Greenfield is a lucid and thorough communicator

Greenfield has a point, however unfashionable it may be...an interesting polemic and a starting point for further debate

Startling statistics…The importance of Mind Change’s subject is clear

Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE is a Senior Research Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford University. A scientist, writer, broadcaster and Cross-Bench member in the House of Lords, she specialises in applying neuroscience to fundamental issues such as the impact of 21st-century technologies on the mind, how the brain generates consciousness, and the development of innovative approaches  to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s She has been the recipient of 31 honorary degrees from both British and foreign universities , and of many awards including  Chevalier Legion d’Honneur from the French Government e,and an Honorary Fellowship from  the Royal College of Physicians, as well as being selected as  Honorary Australian of the Year in 2006. She appears regularly on radio and television and frequently gives talks to both the public and private sectors.

In Mind Change, Susan Greenfield discusses the all-pervading technologies that now surround us, and from which we derive instant information, connected identity, diminished privacy and exceptionally vivid here-and-now experiences. In her view they are creating a new environment, with vast implications, because our minds are physically adapting: being rewired. What could this mean, and how can we harness, rather than be harnessed by, our new technological milieu to create better alternatives and more meaningful lives? Using the very latest research, Mind Change is intended to incite debate as well as yield the way forward. There is no better person to explain the situation in a way we can understand, and to offer new insights on how to improve our mental capacities and well being.

How 21st-Century Technology is Changing the Way We Think and Feel

Tomorrow's People

Susan Greenfield is one of the most celebrated and outspoken scientists in Britain.

Baroness Greenfield is a distinguished scientist, broadcaster, writer and best selling author of Private Life of the Brain (2000) Penguin. She is a Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford, which she holds jointly with her position as Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

The book is an exploration of how this century is going to change not just the way we think, but also what we actually think with - our own individual minds. How will new technologies transform the way we see the world? At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we may be standing on the brink of a mind make-over far more cataclysmic than anything that has happened before. As we appreciate the dynamism and sensitivity of our brain circuitry, so the prospect of directly tampering with the essence of our individuality becomes a possibility.

The Private Life of the Brain

Susan Greenfield is a leading neuroscientist based at the Laboratory of Pharmacology, Oxford. In 1994 she was the first woman to give the annual Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. She is the presenter for BBC2's Brain Story.

What is happening in the brain when we drink too much alcohol, get high on ecstasy or experience road rage? Emotion, says internationally acclaimed neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, is the building block of consciousness. As our minds develop we create a personalized inner world based on our experiences. But during periods of intense emotion, such as anger, fear or euphoria, we can literally lose our mind, returning to the mental state we experienced as infants. Challenging many preconceived notions, Susan Greenfield's groundbreaking book seeks to answer one of science's most enduring mysteries: how our unique sense of self is created.

Susan Greenfield

[Greenfield is] often described as the foremost female scientist in Britain, but is one of the best of any gender, anywhere, at getting complicated ideas across

Susan Greenfield

Praise for A Day in the Life of the Brain

[Greenfield is] often described as the foremost female scientist in Britain, but is one of the best of any gender, anywhere, at getting complicated ideas across

Books by Susan Greenfield

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