Engaging the prefrontal cortex
In recent columns, I’ve been discussing issues of free speech in blogs and college newspapers. Today I am completing the series with some advice that I hope security and network experts will pass on to young people in their families and to teachers that they may know.
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Regardless of whether specific comments fall within editorial guidelines or not, everyone should think carefully about anything they say or write that will be made public.
Comments that might be perfectly appropriate in private conversation – funny, satirical, sarcastic, exaggerated – can be time bombs once they reach the public sphere. Speaking to reporters can be a wonderful opportunity for an organization or for an individual; however, not all reporters have the best interests of the people the interview in mind when they publish or broadcast quotations. Sometimes, quotations can be taken out of context and result in misrepresentation of the speaker’s position. But sometimes, direct, accurate quotation of thoughtless comments can cause serious harm to the speaker, especially if they are young people.
The prefrontal cortex of the human brain is largely responsible for planning, judgment and control of impulse. These frontal lobes are incompletely myelinated until the late teens or early 20s for most people. Hypo-myelination results in weaker control of impulse, poor judgment and inadequate planning. Anyone who has raised children will instantly recognize the effects of changing patterns of myelination on behavior.
Interestingly, alcohol depresses frontal lobe activity, resulting in disinhibition that can be expressed in childish behavior, exaggerated emotionality, suggestibility and disorganization. Have you ever noticed that drunks can sometimes act like children – and vice versa? For an entertaining review of the most famous case of damage to the prefrontal cortex, see an article about Phineas Gage, who got a crowbar through his head in 1848.
Young people with incompletely matured frontal lobes are susceptible to blurting out comments with little or no regard for their effects on others or the consequences for their own reputation. Personally, I remember to this day with horror that when I was 14, I casually told a girl in my high school class that she looked like an ostrich; I cannot imagine doing something horrible like that today, but my immaturity made this hurtful comment seemed perfectly ordinary. I think about my own unthinking cruelty to that poor girl when I contemplate the years of persecution I suffered at the hands of other children in my high school and put their behavior in perspective: our frontal lobes weren’t mature!
As adults, we can help young people avoid blunders that could damage their prospects for entry into college or the job market. Freedom of speech or no freedom of speech, casually confessing that one finds professors so boring that one is compelled to text friends extensively during class time may sound like a harmless joke to the speakers, and it’s harmless in a private conversation. However, when such a comment is published on the Web, the unintended consequences can include viewing by an admissions committee in a graduate program or by an employment officer in an organization thinking of hiring the student – not to speak of the anger of fellow students and of professors.
It’s true that some adults looking at the candidate might simply dismiss the comment as unimportant; the problem is that others might look at the date and ask whether enough time has elapsed to overcome the obvious immaturity of the speaker at the time of the quotation. With dozens or hundreds of applicants applying for each opening, why would anyone want to lower their rank in the list?
Here are some suggestions to discuss with young people you know:
• If you are being interviewed, think before you answer a question. You don’t have to answer instantly just because the interviewer seems to be in a hurry.
• As you consider your answer remember that complete strangers will be seeing or hearing it.
• Before making a comment that criticizes yourself or someone else, think carefully about what benefits or harm there might be to you in saying that in public and for a permanent record.
• If you are writing an article or creating a documentary clip, consider the consequences to the human beings you are representing if you distort what they say or deliberately give a false impression of their meaning.
• To the degree possible, check your final quotations in context with the people you are quoting. It may be difficult if you are under deadline, but it’s worth trying even if it means phoning somebody to read them your text.
• Unprofessional behavior as a writer or other producer of public communications will harm you, not just your subjects and your readers or viewers.
My final thought for today is that if these rules were followed in the political sphere, an entire industry devoted to creating political propaganda would collapse.
Hey, there’s an idea!
