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1 week ago | 
newscientist.com | Dean Burnett
George Orwell once wrote that every generation “imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it”. Today, the second part of that observation feels more astute than ever, as we face constant concerns about the ways modern technology is supposedly destroying the minds and cognitive abilities of children and young people.
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1 week ago | 
theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com | Dean Burnett
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1 week ago | 
theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com | Dean Burnett
If you were listening to Radio 5 Live at 9am on the morning of Wednesday, April the 9th, 2025, you would have heard host Nicky Campbell discuss Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s confirmation of plans to reduce the UK voting age to 16. On paper, there are no grounds to object. Lowering the voting age in this manner was in Labour’s 2024 election manifesto. Labour won the election by a considerable margin. Therefore, the majority of the country voted for the manifesto. So, it logically should, must happen.
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2 weeks ago | 
sciencefocus.com | Dean Burnett
Perhaps inevitably in such turbulent, uncertain times, there’s a renewed interest in cryonics: the freezing and storing of human remains so that they can be resurrected in the future when medical technology is sufficiently advanced. The appeal of this is obvious. It’s basically the mortality equivalent of a video game save point, allowing you to ‘undo’ whatever life-ending harm you’ve experienced and pick up where you left off.
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2 weeks ago | 
theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com | Dean Burnett
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3 weeks ago | 
theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com | Dean Burnett |Natasha Devon
A unique feature of school in Wales is the Eisteddfod, an annual contest that celebrates Welsh culture. People compete in all manner of events, like essays, poetry, clog dancing, musical performances, and more. However, by the 1990s when I was in school, the ancient traditions of the Eisteddfod had been modified to adapt to modern sensibilities. Hence Welsh clog dancing became just dancing. The electric guitar was added to musical recitals. And so on.
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3 weeks ago | 
theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com | Dean Burnett
If you’re part of any left-leaning, liberal-minded, or just plain “not an out and out fascist” community online, a fun game that pops up fairly regularly is “What’s your most right-wing opinion?”I say it’s fun, and I mean that in the neuropsychological sense. Human’s aren’t pure logic machines, we’re creatures of flux and chaos. As a result, nobody is entirely 100% consistent with their political ideology. This doesn’t just apply to left-wing/leaning people, of course. It’s universal.
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1 month ago | 
theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com | Dean Burnett
I’m publishing this post exactly 1 week since my appearance on long-running UK daytime TV show ‘This Morning’. Here’s a clip in case you missed it. Those among my friends and family who saw it felt it went very well, and I certainly enjoyed the experience. But there was one comment that kept coming up a lot.
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1 month ago | 
theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com | Dean Burnett
I’ve had requests to do something about IQ scores, because there’s apparently a growing trend in certain communities online (naming no names, but they skew white, male, loud, and angry) to focus on, and boast about, IQ scores. I haven’t been paying much attention to this phenomenon, because: a) honestly, why would I?
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2 months ago | 
theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com | Dean Burnett
Lo, what’s this? A new and extensive study into the impact of smartphone bans in schools was published and made headlines this week, despite the fact that it clearly states banning phones in schools doesn’t do anything! It’s honestly quite refreshing to see. I guess when the paper is published in something as credible as The Lancet and includes over a thousand students from dozens of schools (with varying degrees of smartphone restrictions), then it’s a lot harder to dismiss.
