spam, i forget where the word originated with regards to unwanted email.

i do recall the story of a cern scientist sending the first spam email to colleagues in his field - and making a killing in sales.

those days are over.

but, in effect, our brain is served spam hourly 

Andrew W. McCollough and Edward K. Vogel  (in Scientific American):
Anyone who has tried to find an urgent e-mail amid masses of advertisements for dubious stock opportunities and sexual-enhancement drugs understands the critical importance of being able to filter out distracting information. That e-mail you seek may be in there, but it is lost among irrelevant clutter.

Although the capacity of our computer’s e-mail in-box is limited only by disk space, our mental “in-box” of working memory—the brain regions and processes that create temporary storage—is much more constrained. In fact, several decades of research have in­dicated that our capacity to hold information “in mind” for immediate use is limited to a mere three or four items.

My title is misleading, there is no pain in spammy content - but i think the problem is, if we are constantly filling our head with meaningless, shallow drivel - what happens when we are forced to use it to process a major loss?

can we exercise our brain for pain?

good question:


Daniel Brainin

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behold, a nudder blog: brainin, daniel