Workshop - Dr. Mari Swingle

Internet Addiction: The effects of constant connectivity on the brain and behaviour.
Dr. Mari Swingle
1-day Workshop
28 April


Effects of technologies on the brain, behavior, and generalized sense of well-being, were first observed in clinical populations in the early 2000’s. Early studies were rather united finding excessive applications in adults to have a direct association with the development and/or maintenance of specific ailments for which people were seeking psychological services; namely Anxiety, Depression, and the Obsessive-Compulsive spectrum.
 
Today, constant connectivity appears to be directly associated with generalized hyperarousal within wider portions of the population; including perseveration, generalized fretting, emotional deregulation, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, and forms of chronic fatigue also referred to as adrenal fatigue.

Constant stimulation, hyperarousal, or otherwise lack of brain quiet, further appears to be associated with increased difficulties with focus on non-screen based learning (& play), observation, the assimilation of information, and certain forms of creative and numerical processing (pattern recognition and integration) which may have gross implications in the development or maintenance of behavioural disorders and learning disabilities in children. Emergent research is further starting to imply functional and structural alterations observed within the brain itself which may imply permanent change in function if not development.

This workshop will explore the first discoveries of what was initially termed Internet Addiction, through to present day more globalized effects. It will explore positive integrated usage (or otherwise healthy normative usage) versus usage which is increasingly proving to affect development, mental and physical health, and arguably has pathological components. We will also explore my emergent research on what excessive and/or interfering patterns look like on the EEG.

Effects vary immensely by culture (environment), chronological age, and age of introduction/assimilation. As such, research and data will be presented within in environmental and cultural contexts.

Learning Objectives

• To identify when excessive screen usage may be affecting the mental and physical health of a client.
• To identify when excessive or inappropriate usage may be interfering with the success of treatment.
• To recognize EEG patterns that may be associated with excessive applications.
• To identify symptom patterns.
• To identify individual cultural, environmental, and (epi)genetic protective factors versus liabilities which can turn normative healthy usage to excessive usage and the potential for the development of pathology (including addiction).
• To learn the potential adverse effects on socio-emotional and cognitive development in the young and alterations of states and traits in the elder.
• To identify when usage is normative, healthy or otherwise positive integration in modern life.

About Dr. Mari Swingle

Dr. Mari Swingle brings to the clinic extensive experience from both the world of Education and Clinical Psychology. Prior to the founding of Swingle Clinic, in 1997, Dr. Mari Swingle worked extensively in curriculum development, language learning, and the exploration of learning modalities to assist with accelerated as well as remedial learning. Currently she works with a wide range of neurophysiological ailments; her specialty lying with children and families experiencing behavioral and learning difficulties including but not limited to, dyslexia, processing, written output, speech and auditory disorders. Dr. Mari Swingle also frequently works with the dynamics that arise in families with a child experiencing learning and or behavioral challenges including parental fatigue, depression, anxiety, addictions, and couple/parental dynamics.