Bill Gates, one of the technological entrepreneurs most influential of recent history, and Microsoft has become one of the few technology companies that has surpassed the threshold of 3 billion quote stock market
However, despite all the professional achievements of his career, the millionaire is not sure if he would have had the same luck if he had grown up like today’s children do.
In one recent publication In his personal blog, the Microsoft co-founder highlighted the importance of his childhood away from smartphones and social networks. “When I felt restless or bored, I would disappear into my room and get lost in books or ideas, often for hours, without interruption,” Gates wrote.
Children without cell phones
According to the technology magnate, having time for reflection and deep learning in his room was a key element in his personal and professional development. “It was crucial to my later success,” said Bill Gates.
In his writing, Gates recommended the book recommended the book ‘The anxious generation‘, by the social psychologist at New York University, Jonathan Haidt, which explores the impact of smartphones and social networks in children’s brains. The author links mental health problemsincreasingly common among young people, with the content and type of communication established through smartphones.
The current debate among parents, teachers and scientists centers on whether use should be limited of smartphones and even from the screens in the educational process of children. However, Gates puts it from another point of view in which he emphasizes that this “phone-based childhood” can make it difficult to creativity development and problem solving.
According to a study from Sunway University of Malaysia, the use of mobile devices affects the efficiency of learning and memory processes. For its part, since Child Mind Institute they assure what use of smartphones ruins concentrationespecially in the case of children.
A childhood of creators, not consumers
On the other hand, Gates spoke of the benefits of a childhood like those experienced by generations that, like his, grew up were “childhoods based on play” in which creative thinking was developed, as how he holds Harvard research, rather than “a telephone-based childhood.”
“Our attention span is like a muscle, and the constant interruptions and addictive nature of social media make it incredibly difficult to develop,” Gates wrote.
Reading Haidt’s book made the millionaire question whether he had really developed his taste for reading if I hadn’t had these moments of boredom and “do nothing”before picking up a book and discovering everything you learned during his childhood.
That reading habit and deep thinking that Bill Gates acquired during his childhood has accompanied him throughout his life, to the point that he even established the practice of “Thinking Week.” According to published The Wall Street Journalevery year since the 90s, the millionaire retreats once a year to an isolated cabin with the only company of a pile of books to study.
There, without access to email no distractionshe immersed himself in books and technical documents to devise future projects. As detailed in the North American newspaper article, some of Microsoft’s most successful initiatives, such as the Internet Explorer browser, emerged during these periods of concentration.
Being bored is a vital necessity
According to Bill Gates, “Without the ability to concentrate intensely and follow an idea wherever it leads, the world could miss the gains that come from focusing on something and holding it there, even when the dopamine hit of a quick distraction is one step away.” click away”.
He constant bombardment of stimuli and dopamine that social networks provide prevent the brain from seeking answers to questions that have not yet been asked. There are those who even call it “the boredom epidemic”, but maybe, getting bored is the best thing that can happen to us when we are children…and even not so children.
Image | Flickr (TED Conference)