Lots of books have been written about both the positive and negative effects of the internet on our minds and the types of people we are becoming. For balanced, opposing views, I’d recommend Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus and Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows.
One of the reasons I really wanted to take time off to write a book was to see for myself whether I still could!
What I noticed was that the more I engaged on the Internet, the less I engaged in my own thoughts – particularly as we pushed ABS-CBN reporters onto social media like Twitter and Facebook. I could feel changes inside my own head. I respond faster – like muscle memory. I get the latest news and views, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate and focus as well as I used to.
Researchers say technology is literally changing and rewiring our brains – realigning the pathways to change the way we think. When your blackberry buzzes or your twitter tweets, it pulls your mind from whatever it’s doing. It also gives you a chemical buzz from dopamine – which apparently is highly addictive. We’ve become dopamine junkies!
That’s why twitter’s so addictive – and why you can spend hours on the internet and stand up feeling like you did something even though you didn’t.
It took me two to three months of strict twitter and facebook rationing to be able to rewire my brain and remind it to focus. I’m not where I used to be: intense concentration to write a script in 15 minutes or finish a book in a few hours. I’m working on it.
In our world today, we need both the ability to connect and engage through new technology and the ability to go inwards, focus and create. We’re inundated with information, and we need to cull and process. Otherwise, we skim the surface and recycle and retweet without adding any value, realigning the pathways of our brains to make us shallower human beings.
In the end, the limiting factor in our expanding world today is our human capacity to absorb and adapt.
Don’t forget: focus, think, write.
I don't think the internet is making a lot of people dumb. They just don't know how to use it properly.
I think internet is not making people dumber. It's just people tend to use this helpful tool i the lamest way
I don't think the internet is making anyone dumber. That statement suggests a lack of ownership for one's problems. It is comparable to saying that guns kill people, or that fast food businesses are responsible for the obesity epidemic. Individual people decide whether to pull the trigger, stuff their faces, or waste time on the internet. Like anything, it is a matter of self-control and prioritizing one's time. Is a twitter and facebook account really even necessary, or have people just been duped into wasting a good portion of their lives all to the benefit of some huge company?
Hi there Richard, I think you are totally right. Whilst I enjoy wasting my time on Facebook as much as the next person, it's certainly not the highlight of my day. When I gent into my office in the mornings I am motivated to get on with my job so therefore my email and my to do list for the day are what's important to me! Being my own boss I have to be disciplined to get on with my work as obviously I reap the rewards! I also like spending time in the "real" world
I agree. Sometimes I tell my friends about something I find interesting on the net and when they start asking questions I would refer them to the link of that information realizing that I don't really have full understanding of what I've read or seen.
In his interesting NY Times article, "The Twitter Trap," Bill Keller says," twitter is the enemy of contemplation." ____I think so. Without a leash on twitter and the internet, in general, I find myself introspecting less, contemplating less. I feel busier but am actually less productive. So I now consciously track my internet time, leave my GPS at home so I can naigate the old way and exercise my memory more before I google.____
It's pretty ironic that sometimes, technology inevitably suppressed its mother-its maker that is creativity and innovativeness. It's like a double-edged sword, and sadly most of us were caught on the deadly trap of letting "things" do the thinking, the contemplating, the reflecting for us. I was a net addict, and I admit sitting in front of the computer 10 hours straight, letting my soul got sucked into that vortex of nonsensical, useless information draining out the juices of my brain…it's not a pretty sight..I might as well be addicted to booze and nicotine
I think part of what we have to do is totally immerse so we can understand it, conquer it, then put it into perspective. At least, that's what I'm hoping!
'The World is Flat' indeed.
The internet is changing the standards of "dumb" and "smart"
I find myself decreasing my attention, focus, and even patience. There are times that I tend to lose grip of the ideas in my head. In fact, I stopped writing new content on my fanfic (well, I wanted feedback on its state first, since it had almost fifty pages, and that's what kept me back). Simply put, I had "plugged" electronic gadgets in my system.
I always seek to put my focus when I write code (I'm an aspiring software developer, BTW). The digital rewire is inevitable ("classical" lectures become boring without interactivity in it, as what I am experiencing recently), but we can avoid drowning in…
One thing I do is to only keep a Twitter account and a Facebook account (a Tumblr account too, but I am not updating it often), none more. I view them in once a day.
Ms. Resa, they are similar to templates that we use in the office. We forgot to edit them so it would look like we wrote them or rather to personalize each letters or memos that we do day in and day out. This is the very reason I still let my children write journals and diaries so they still can use their imagination and thinking on how to express themselves in writing. Internet is more on input than output…spoonfeeding than creativity..but again, internet has made the world flat.
i missed using my webster's dictionary now that google is the answer to almost all of my questions
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The internet has turned me into an information addict. I can't stop myself and I'm not happy about it. I spend hours on Wikipedia and news sites that I haven't done things that I usually spend most of my time doing. Since the wifi in our dorm was fixed six months ago, I haven't finished a book and the only way I could write is when I push myself really hard. Fortunately, this hasn't affected my studies. I want help. I told my mom about it this summer and she thinks I'm only overreacting and that I let most of what I read into my head. I'm worried. I'm 17.
Checking my online accounts is like the first I do when I go home. It's like I can't live without them PLUS if I need to know something I google it or I just check the news online.
It's our world today! I think this is like the pendulum swing. We have to get used to it. The pendulum will swing until it finds equilibrium.
Agree. Except about the last part. I don't think it is the realigning the pathways of our brain that makes us shallower human beings, and conversely, I don't think all those who cull, process and reflect information reach the depth that makes humans, well, humane. I know several people with excellent language facility and who spend time processing information but remain shallow. It is our innate capacity, our natural instinct to transcend, to go beyond, to reach out, and to truly capture the nature of human frailty that makes us "deep", technology notwithstanding.
Agree! But the first step to transcend is solitude, introspection – that means away from the beeps and clicks – away from the white noise.
I think it really depends on how you use it!