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The Internet and Its Destruction of Our Brain For billions of people across the globe, the Internet Is a crucial part of their everyday lives whether for business or social purposes. The amount of Google searches per day has skyrocketed over the last 15 years. In 1 998, the average number of searches was 9,800. Today, there are over 5. 9 trillion per day (Comers). The Google search engine is only two decades old (Comers), but has significantly changed the way it has allowed people think.
People are continuing to rely on the Internet instead of their brains, resulting in a decrease of one’s ability to think deeply, perform connection making and interact with others. Some would say that the Internet has become bliss for students completing school work. With easy access to unlimited Information, assignments and essays can be done in a fraction of the time it would take without the Internet. However, with the Internet comes the temptation of plagiarism.
Since the Internet Is so accessible, the quick and easy act of “cut and paste” becomes frequent. In 2011, one In three high school students admit that they ad used the Internet to plagiarism an assignment (McCabe 2). It seems as though many people are not going online to do traditional reading, but to find the ‘quick fix’ so they can answer the question instantly. The connection making aspect has been lost due to the lack of in depth reading and applying this new knowledge to an assignment.
In Nicholas Cars essay, “Is Google making us Stupid? ” he introduced an experiment conducted by scholars from the University College London who performed a study about the behavior of people visiting two research websites. They concluded that: People using the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site. 228) This form of this skimming activity can be seen as though It Is a search engine. People are looking for the ‘key words’ when skimming articles online and do not take time to thoroughly read and digest the articles unless those key words are found instantly. This is hanging our ability to make connections between what our objective is (school assignments) and what is being read. Carr points out that he now expects the Internet to deliver information to him in an easy format, without having to interpret what he is reading (227).
People may argue that the Internet can provide an answer in a fraction of a second, allowing you to receive the answer without having to think and process the question fully. The easy click of a finger allows you to access information without having to recall your own cognitive memory. Asking a friend for n unknown answer Is a tedious process. Finding the friend, asking, hoping they will know the answer, walling for them to process the question and then search their memory for the answer. Even though this process Is lengthy, It Is still allowing your Drain to actively participate Walt ten Orlando quest. Nerves a quickly online search does not allow you to use cognitive thinking towards the original question, it hands you an answer on a golden plate. The quote by Harris “Even a blob post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. “(2) is a perfect example of how the Internet has even effected the minds of authors who use the Internet frequently. In Car’s essay he indicates that he, even as a writer sees that the net is slowly chipping away at his capacity for contemplation. Carr 227) In an experiment performed by Sparrow et al. , 60 Harvard students were asked to submit 40 trivia questions into a computer and were told that the questions would either be saved or erased. Students who thought the questions would be saved were unable to answer majority of questions. Those students who believed the questions would be erased excelled hen answering the questions. This shows that when people are faced with questions they are unsure of, they rely on the Internet first to supply the answer rather than being independent.
With knowing they will have access to the information in the future, they prove to have less recollection of the information. (sparrow 177) With an average of 8 h hours each day of Internet and digital technology use, people’s communication and social behavior skills are declining. (Loch). Coffee dates are becoming less popular; to get to know someone you can instantly look up their riffle on either Faceable or Twitter to discover their interests and favorites without having to speak to them.
The Internet has become one of the most favorable lines of communication for younger generations (Loch). Even though we now have more ways of communicating through the Internet, it seems as though it is hurting our capability to communicate with people face-to-face. Within Harrier’s essay, he explains how Gary Small, (a psychiatric doctor) observes how too many hours spent on the Internet can affect a person: Among the young people he calls digital natives, he has repeatedly en a lack of human contact skills – “maintaining eye contact, or noticing non-verbal cues in a conversation”.
When he can, he does his best to somehow retrain them: “When I go to colleges and talk to students, I have them do one of our face-to-face human contact exercises: ‘Turn to someone next to you, preferably someone you don’t know, turn off your mobile device. ‘ One person talks and the other one listens and maintains eye contact. That’s very powerful. (12). Brain researchers have discovered that the mental masterwork within our skull, which they thought was fully finished evolving by adulthood is still continuing to reprogram itself with everything new we expose it to. Carr 228). With being closed off behind a computer and the Internet, it is allowing our brain to become less active in face-to-face communication with others therefore, rewiring your brain to a less ideal functioning state. The Internet becomes a safe blanket for many people which allows them to strengthen their confidence, but when challenged with a face-to-face conversation their confidence would most likely deflate. The Internet is not allowing humans to reach their full attention and the amount of possibilities people could obtain without the Internet is endless.
The inability to think deeply and perform connection making while reading articles will lead to a decrease of our independence. The incapability of being able to interact with other will also lead to relying strictly up on the Internet every day. The more people believe in their brain, the farther they will go.