The Effects of Computer Programming on the Brain (2012)(virtuecenter.com)
virtuecenter.com
The Effects of Computer Programming on the Brain (2012)
http://virtuecenter.com/blog/the_effects_of_computer_programming_on_the_brain.html
24 comments
> For some people, the healthiest reward is the coding. For others, it's working on solving a 300-year old math problem, or struggling for hours and days to find the perfect word for a line in a poem, or a sentence in a novel. There are no "healthier" rewards than those intellectual gymnastics.
More to the point, there aren't any other rewards than dopamine. Dopamine is literally what a reward is in the brain. Unless you're just never going to do anything rewarding, this is inescapable.
> someone who may be suffering from what I can only really describe as coding addiction, the solution may be to find healthier rewards.
If your definition of addiction is dopaminergenic action, then you're simply proposing another addiction here, because you're just proposing a different dopaminergenic action besides coding here.
More to the point, there aren't any other rewards than dopamine. Dopamine is literally what a reward is in the brain. Unless you're just never going to do anything rewarding, this is inescapable.
> someone who may be suffering from what I can only really describe as coding addiction, the solution may be to find healthier rewards.
If your definition of addiction is dopaminergenic action, then you're simply proposing another addiction here, because you're just proposing a different dopaminergenic action besides coding here.
I wouldn't qualify this as an addiction either[0], but it's still good to know what motivates programmer behavior and the dopamine cycle is definitely a factor. The real question is how do we use this information in a productive way (better code quality) rather than a destructive way (needless code complexity).
[0]: My personal definition of addiction is, if you were to stop doing X activity for a week cold turkey, would you experience withdrawal symptoms?
[0]: My personal definition of addiction is, if you were to stop doing X activity for a week cold turkey, would you experience withdrawal symptoms?
People barred from flow often experience intense anxiety; I'd imagine that the "addicted" programmer not experiencing code flow would just replace that need with something like a high-complexity videogame.
The author's scope is maybe too narrow by focusing only on programmers. Perhaps this problem can be generalized to a type of individual that requires the flow state to the extent that their other behavior is perturbed or dysfunctional. Compare Richard Feynman's explosive rage when distracted from calculus or drums...
The author's scope is maybe too narrow by focusing only on programmers. Perhaps this problem can be generalized to a type of individual that requires the flow state to the extent that their other behavior is perturbed or dysfunctional. Compare Richard Feynman's explosive rage when distracted from calculus or drums...
Yeah, when I had to stop dancing--an activity that gives me a flow experience every day--for weeks because of a twisted foot tendon, I became a mess of anxiety, and even resorting to singing sessions wouldn't quite give me my "fix", or fix me so to speak. Likewise, it's not about having to stop programming, it's about, for example, having to stop working on a project in which you have lots of daily momentum and flow. I think it's a proper addiction. Now if it's just half-hearted programming, nobody misses it much.
That was exactly what I wanted to say, if in more words: too many simple dichotomies.
A quote from someone who commented on the page:
"When the programming addicts on Hacker News write about programming addiction, they almost never call it programming addiction. Usually they call it being passionate about programming. And in their opinion, programmers who are not passionate about programming are bad programmers."
Not saying I agree, but it could be the start of an interesting discussion.
Not saying I agree, but it could be the start of an interesting discussion.
I don't like seeing the language of addiction and recovery expanded to new areas like this. It's a way of putting moral frame on behavior that can be healthy and enriching.
I first felt this way when I saw "addiction" applied as a label to kids who prefered playing video games to going outside. My response was "did they call it addiction before video games when kids played with blocks and action figures indoors?" They didn't. It's easy for people to reach for the term "addiction" when they want to pathologize behavior they don't like.
Fact is, the dopamine cycle is a natural part of life. The problem isn't whether something is addictive or not, it's whether the side effects of that pleasure cycle are harmful. I've had periods in my life where I've spent weeks and months at a time "heads down" in programming. It was always as controllable as it was pleasurable.
I first felt this way when I saw "addiction" applied as a label to kids who prefered playing video games to going outside. My response was "did they call it addiction before video games when kids played with blocks and action figures indoors?" They didn't. It's easy for people to reach for the term "addiction" when they want to pathologize behavior they don't like.
Fact is, the dopamine cycle is a natural part of life. The problem isn't whether something is addictive or not, it's whether the side effects of that pleasure cycle are harmful. I've had periods in my life where I've spent weeks and months at a time "heads down" in programming. It was always as controllable as it was pleasurable.
When you play with blocks and action figures, you typically don't need to play "just one more" several dozen times in a row until the sun starts to rise. While I don't always do this programming, there are times when I fixed a bug or added a feature... And I have to do one more quick one before turning in. Several bug fixes later and I realize I have to get up in a few hours for my real job.
I'm not saying it us addiction, but there is definitely something to playing a game that I didn't get playing with Legos... Of course I did the same reading... Just one more chapter
Especially when you consider many of those kids went on to help create a billion dollar industry and make a good life for themselves.
Except there are legitimate health-risks to playing video games for extended periods, which I believe is what you mean when you say "preferring video games to the outside world". Both are odds with healthy development if allowed without restrictions, but they are hardly equivalent in their effects on the body.
It's controllable until some outside force stops it cold, like what if you got wrist injury in the midst of your coding weeks, or a kid playing videogames daily has her console stop functioning? A lot of anxiety will ensue if you don't have a fallback activity. Weren't you addicted? That said, getting addicted to a purposeful programming project is more beneficial than harmful for me.
In the startup world, "Passion" is a shibboleth, or a way of speaking that signals yourself as part of the in crowd. Or, in full startup vernacular, people who are "passionate" about programming are a good "culture fit."
I'm not saying people aren't passionate about programming, but in the context of the startup world, the literal meanings of the words don't matter. The subtext is what's being listened for.
I'm not saying people aren't passionate about programming, but in the context of the startup world, the literal meanings of the words don't matter. The subtext is what's being listened for.
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I'm not passionate about programming at all. It's just the best way to make money from home.
But I keep my skill growing anyway because I'd like to produce better software products. Development is a mess already, it will be better to prevent further complications.
But I keep my skill growing anyway because I'd like to produce better software products. Development is a mess already, it will be better to prevent further complications.
When they say bad programmers they simply mean not as good as them, which is a mean but true and fair thing to say.
There is some interesting research made into this:
Dietrich, A (2004) The cognitive neuroscience of creativity [1]
Dietrich, A (2004) Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the experience of flow [2]
[1] http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03196731#page-1
[2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810004000583One of the things I've noticed by being in front of the computer all the time is that my brain never gets a chance to reminisce my past. My past is just a blurry memory indistinguishable from a hallucination.
Internet Screens have fundamentally changed human brain.
Internet Screens have fundamentally changed human brain.
This sounds like it could be quite bad for learning. I've found my learning of an abstract subject, such as mathematics, greatly increases when I can take a step back at each successive milestone of progress.
In contrast, when everything simply blurs together, there are no clearly delineated chunks of memory to latch linguistic markers onto, and I fail to build abstractions out of those thoughts.
Of course, this concern may be moot in the case of computer programming, since the abstractions involved are often concretely represented by the computer itself! In a way, when we program, we are outsourcing a part of our brain, relying on a smaller subset of mental capacity, and relying on the computer to amplify it back again, by handling the abstractions for us.
OTOH, this may simply be proof that going to the whiteboard before coding up a solution is a healthy alternative to hacking away at the keyboard all day without thought.
In contrast, when everything simply blurs together, there are no clearly delineated chunks of memory to latch linguistic markers onto, and I fail to build abstractions out of those thoughts.
Of course, this concern may be moot in the case of computer programming, since the abstractions involved are often concretely represented by the computer itself! In a way, when we program, we are outsourcing a part of our brain, relying on a smaller subset of mental capacity, and relying on the computer to amplify it back again, by handling the abstractions for us.
OTOH, this may simply be proof that going to the whiteboard before coding up a solution is a healthy alternative to hacking away at the keyboard all day without thought.
What is the neurological explanation for the excessive desire to find the 'optimal' algorithm, language, database ... to solve a problem rather than just solve the problem. Do we just answer 'dopamine' to any question involving behaviour motivation or could seratonin be at play? Anxiety about work product solution not being as good as it could is perhaps different than 'yay it works without an error!'
So the burnout I've experienced has actually been withdrawal and after 18 months off kilter I've suddenly been reminded how to remedy my malaise.
Could be an interesting road for those trying to design an efficient hiring test for software developers. AFAIK there is no such test yet.
A rather good discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5790508.
Instead, the author has a pre-determined value judgement of what is a "good" or "bad" allocation of priorities. From that premise, he works backwards to a observation that coding can be addictive. This addictiveness is then judged as "bad":
>someone who may be suffering from what I can only really describe as coding addiction, the solution may be to find healthier rewards.
For some people, the healthiest reward is the coding. For others, it's working on solving a 300-year old math problem, or struggling for hours and days to find the perfect word for a line in a poem, or a sentence in a novel. There are no "healthier" rewards than those intellectual gymnastics.
Sometimes it's true that these "addictions" don't perfectly align with business priorities and client demands. Saying that the addiction is "unhealthy" is favoring the perspective of the business. The other perspective is that the individual is in the "wrong" day job.