Dr. Franca Parianen

The world is big and complex. To process it anyway, our brain outsources work – to calendars, calculators or colleagues. Whoever stores knowledge forgets it faster, but also has more room for something new. Yet what has long been a proven system reaches entirely new dimensions in a permanently connected world. New studies show that it is not only working with satnavs and autopilots that leaves its mark on our cognition, but also AI support in medical diagnoses.

So where is the line between cultural progress and mental laziness? Is every skill really worth protecting? And how can we use technology so that it boosts our cognition instead of limiting it?

A ride through the neuroscience of humans and machines reveals when we would rather do automatable tasks ourselves, why people are sometimes smarter online after all, and why the benefit of technology depends above all on how much we keep thinking for ourselves.

The brain shies away from change. We avoid uncertainty and loss of control, judge innovations more critically than the status quo and weigh possible losses more heavily than any gain. Even our goals in a crisis are mostly about getting through it unchanged – or at least returning to where we started as quickly as possible. It is no coincidence that many of our ideas of resilience come from engineering, where they describe steel girders.

But what if we have misunderstood how to deal with stress? What if these times demand change above all? And our attempt to stay unmoved is part of the problem?

A fresh look at resilience research shows that in times of rapid change, stability only comes from adaptation – and stress often comes from trying to avoid it. It is the same principle by which waves sweep us away less when we dive into them instead of waiting for the spray to hit us in the face. And it applies in medicine just as much as in research on brains or ecosystems. Under changing conditions, flexibility matters more than efficiency, specialisation becomes a relic and diversity even more of an advantage. But above all: it is better to lose your composure now and then than to lose your ability to respond.

How does the brain prefer to deal with challenges? By avoiding them, of course. A search for “stress-free” brings up millions of Google results. Yet a look at the hormonal system shows that we are doing stress hormones an injustice: adrenaline, cortisol and co. help us get up, go jogging, fall in love – or gear up for a challenge. Much of what stresses us – novelty, uncertainty and social interaction – is also what really gets our dopamine system going. In the end, the same hormones that drive us under the covers in chronic stress are the ones that give us focus and flow. So why do we often experience them so differently?

The latest research shows how we can inspire employees and reduce sick days, why loss of control is the decisive stress factor, how we can best structure our working day or immunise ourselves against overload – and why the ideal stress-free environment is not a blank space, but a garden.

The human brain has unique social abilities. The only question is where they are hiding.

Throughout human history, cooperation has been not only our greatest talent but also our only chance. To that end, our ancestors developed not just the prefrontal cortex but a whole range of indispensable social skills. From empathy and theory of mind to a strong sense of fairness – what we now call soft skills is what makes living together possible in the first place. An entire civilisation built on the insight that those who share knowledge, (care) work and risks often end up with more. At least when the cooperation works.

Today, in the midst of the polycrisis and at the limits of our resources, this very ability to solve problems together has once again become a question of survival. High time to understand why we find it so hard right now. Under what conditions do people pull together – or not? Which thinking traps get in our way? And why are these super-social people never in my working group?

In her talks on the social brain, Parianen explains – depending on the setting – what it takes for humanity, or our team, to pull together again.

When two brains meet, things quickly get very complicated. So what must it be like between 8 billion?

Perspective-taking, compassion and irony – not every social skill moves smoothly into the digital space. Cognitive biases, groupthink and big emotions, on the other hand, travel through any medium. And hardly anywhere do they activate our reward system as skilfully as on social media. In the end, hostility often arises not because algorithms lock us into filter bubbles, but because they cleverly keep confronting us with each other. Yet where facial expressions and nuance are missing, a magic all of its own can emerge at the same time.

So what does it mean to suddenly spread our usual network of a hundred people across several continents? Which thinking errors make us talk past each other online, too? How do we shift the window of discourse in the comments section? And why is everyone on the internet always so mean?