Turkish boys can't play backgammon any more

Is cognitive & emotional decline worse in places like Turkey?

I’m going to go outside my area of expertise here, and write about something that’s been bothering me for a while. People are talking about how digital technology is frying our brains. And like junk food and TV before it, it’s worse for the poor than it is for the rich.

But I’ve seen relatively little about how especially kids in developing countries might be hit heavier than in rich Western countries. But maybe it is. That institutional and economic anomie is worse in countries like Turkey, which makes kids here more susceptible to the cognitive assault of the internet.

For me, the issue crystallized a few months ago, when I was sitting with a ten-year old nephew of mine in a cafe in Istanbul. My wife and her sister had taken our baby for a stroller walk in the nearby park.

So it was just my nephew and I. And yes, it was awkward.

This being a fairly traditional Turkish cafe, there were groups of men around us smoking and playing backgammon. I saw my nephew’s eyes resting on the neighboring table. Then he asked if we could also play. “But I don’t know how,” he said, “you’ll have to teach me.” I said I’d be delighted to.

I asked for a set, lined up the pieces, and explained the rules to him. I told him we’d play a few practice rounds, just so he could learn in action. He agreed.

I thought our first round went well. Whenever my nephew made a mistake, I stopped the game and told him what he had done wrong. I also explained some of the basics of strategy (run when you’re ahead, stay behind and fight when you’re behind). Sometimes I also made tactical interventions (how not to play a 4-2, and how to play it, etc.) I made sure he “hit” plenty of my pieces (he liked that), but I also hit some of his.

I eventually won the hand, and we set up again for the second round.

Except that my nephew now failed to remember any of the rules. The initial setup, for example, is symmetrical in backgammon. I told him this, and he still kept getting it wrong. He couldn’t figure out which direction the pieces moved. I tried to show him, but he said he didn’t get it. He also seemed to have lost the ability to count. “My brain is fried” he kept saying, literally “beynim yandı,” which is a loan transliteration of the English phrase.

After a few minutes of this, he said that the game was just too complicated for him. I assured him he was doing well, and that it just takes a bit more effort, but he had already made up his mind. He stormed off into the park to find his mother, leaving me behind. I later found him deep in the park, talking to a snail he had named Süleyman.

“Has your intelligence developed?”

This sort of thing happens again and again with my younger relatives and family friends, especially the boys. They have short attention spans, are deeply insecure, and as prone to self-sabotage. When challenged, they end up pretending that they’re much younger than they actually are. Many struggle with obesity and video game addiction. They also speak in a weird English-based internet lingo.