For a quarter of a century, researchers have been monitoring how our brains react to certain stimuli and how they process information. They have discovered that the brain starts to build up a stubborn wall against an overload of information and stimuli of a sensational nature. The brain must use this defense mechanism because of the information overload that people, especially those of the past 50 years, have been exposed to. It would appear that as a result of modern humanity's exposure to an ever-increasing amount of dramatic, violent, and sensational information, the brain has had to resort to protecting itself.

About 20 years ago, the first signs of something unique happening inside the brain began to happen. Researchers discovered a strange phenomenon when they were studying the processing of stimuli and emotions of people in Germany.

Four thousand people took part in a biological experiment that extended over a couple of years. After the experiment, it was clearly noted that the participants could not smell and taste as well as before. "In the department of smell and taste there was an extreme change," remembers psychologist Henner Ertel from Munich. "The brain had developed a stimuli acceptance limit under which it refused to process any new stimulant."ⁱ

It has been found that  that our sensitivity to stimuli reduces itself yearly by about 1%. The finer stimuli are filtered out of our consciousness, leaving more space for the coarser sensations known as "the very strong stimuli." In fact, some psychologists believe that with each generation, we are losing the ability to process and accept the more sensitive and finer kinds of stimuli.

The Committee of Rational Psychology (CRP) conducted a study that found that adults (parents of the 80s and 90s) who were shown videos of people being cut to pieces reacted sympathetically and disgustedly. Most of them refused to even watch it through to the end. But the same reaction was not found in the younger generation. They watched emotionless and were more interested in seeing the dramatics and whether the contents of the film were exciting. If it was exciting they continued to watch. If not, then they would switch the movie off.

The CRP discovered a type of generation gap between the groups. Whoever was born before 1949 apparently still had "the old brain." Whoever was born between 1949 and 1969 had a modified version of "the old brain." Only those who were born after 1969 possessed "the new brain."

The new brain can, unlike the older one, react in a state of "dissonance-readiness." By the term dissonance, we understand that there is a disturbance in a normally harmonious process. "The youth," says Henner Ertel, "have grown up with contradictions and can handle them." In the past, one would have called this ability, "multiple-consciousness." Today it is considered normal.ⁱⁱ

All this information points to a rising society whose minds are becoming more and more resistant to the bizarre, violent and sensational messages that they are being bombarded with every day. The sad thing is that their minds are becoming less and less sensitive to the simpler and purer messages that they are being sent. It is believed that by some time next century, the ability of the mind to successfully differentiate between right and wrong will become all but non existent.

Was this article helpful? We'd love to hear your comments or suggestions. Drop us some feedback.

i Popular Mechanics (1993):14-20.

ii ibid.

Updated November 2008.