It was Charles Darwin’s curiosity that led him to take the boat from England to South America on an expedition. And because of that, today we understand the evolution of the human body and the brain. Amongst the plethora of living species, the most powerful one are the homosapeins.

What makes us, homosapeins, the most powerful species on Earth is our brain. Our brain is a supercomputer that has the ability to imagine, to create, to empathize, to communicate and so much more. According to Yuval Harari’s popular book Sapiens, mammals weighing sixty kilograms have an average brain size of 200 cubic centimetres.

Modern sapiens have a brain that averages 1,200 to 1,400 cubic centimeters on average. Our brains are the sole reason why we have evolved most dramatically compared to any other species. Scientists believe that homosapiens gained their cognitive powers due to a serendipitous genetic mutation around 30,000 to 70,000 years ago.

As a result, we developed language to communicate descriptively with each other. There were no hard-drives or cloud storage back then, so the only way to imagine, share and pass on information was to use our cognitive powers to tell stories. Stories enabled us to preserve cultures, religion, myths and legends which till date have a major impact on our belief systems and values. 

As hunters and gatherers, more than 10,000 years ago, our ancestors only needed to process botanical, zoological and social information. However, it was the agricultural revolution that forced the human brain to store and process a completely new type of data: numbers.

The agricultural revolution resulted in the formation of cultivated lands and competition for land, food production and socio-economic power. This was the first time in the history of mankind that kingdoms emerged. In order to maintain power, the leadership had to develop laws and taxes that required the brain to not just invent numbers, but also invent writing and performing calculations.

The Sumerian civilization from 3500 BC who lived in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) were the first to invent the system of storing and processing numbers. The Sumerians combined two types of signs on clay tablets. One sign represented a pictorial sign for wheat or barley for example, and the other sign represented the number (not our modern numbering system though).

As we evolved, so did our writing, numbering and processing systems. These systems evolved from being strictly facts and figures to more descriptive stories. This shows us the power and capability of our brain. A brain that 10,000 years ago only knew how to differentiate a poisonous mushroom from a healing mushroom can today invent machines, understand quantum physics and prepare for space exploration. 

Brain Challenges in the 21st Century Digital Economy

While a knife can be used as a tool to cut fruits and vegetables that nourish our bodies, it can also be used as a murder weapon. Similarly, technology is a tool that can be used to upgrade your skills and productivity levels, or it can be misused to rob you of clarity and peace of mind. It comes down to the power of choice: how you choose to use technology. Here are four ways in which technology and information today is harming our brain and our overall quality of life. 

1. Overload of Information

2. Overdose of Dopamine

3. Over-reliance on Technology

4. Over Comparison Culture 

In the next few weeks, we will look at these four (4) challenges that our brains have to overcome to achieve success & happiness.