Technology Is Changing the Mind

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Recommended: The Effects of Technology on Learning

The clock is ticking, the work is piling up, and with only a few hours to go before sunrise you stop and realize that you have just read some fifty pages and absorbed almost nothing. Some would agree when I say that this situation epitomizes one of the common problems of the Net Generation. With the help of the Internet, not only has every aspect of life gotten faster and more efficient, but it has changed the way people process information and perform tasks. In addition, while technology does have its benefits, the extensive use of the internet is affecting the way people think.

It is simple to brush aside the ability to concentrate as a menial task that everyone can do, but when it gets right down to it, is it easy to devote your entire focus on just one thing? Nicholas Carr, writer of the popular article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” shares his difficulties in that area. He observes that only after reading a few pages of long passages, his “concentration often starts to drift”, then “get fidgety, lose the thread, [and] begin looking for something else to do”. While his situation seems like a normal phenomenon that everyone must experience at some point, he deduces, through research and interviews, that losing the ability to concentrate and focus is occurring more frequently because of the extensive use of technology. Research and studies supplied by the University of College London show that the extensive use of the Internet promotes “power browsing”, which prompts readers to jump from one online article or activity to another without necessarily finishing the first one because the hyperlinks leading from one page to another effectively drags one’s attention away from the task at hand (Carr). In addition, Internet sites s...

... middle of paper ...

...nformation will change along with the new forms of digital media. So if you are in the middle of doing loaded paper work and feel your interest in the material declining and your concentration waning, remember that the use of technology may have a hand in your fatigue.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. The Atlantic.

Interlandi, Jeneen. “Reading This Will Change Your Brain”. Newsweek. 29 January 2011. Accessed: 29 January 2011.

“Is Technology Producing a Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis?”. Science Daily. 29 January 2009. Accessed: 29 January 2011.

Michelon, Pascale. “Brain Plasticity: How Learning Changes Your Brain”. Sharp Brains. 26 February 2011. Accessed: 29 January 2011.

“The Brain 101”. PositScience. nd. Accessed: 29 January 2011.

“What Is Brain Pasticity?”. PositScience. nd. Accessed: 29 January 2011.

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