What the Internet could be doing to our Brains

“Stop watching the television!” That was one of the tips given to me barely a month before I took the LAE. The explanation was that the influx of information due to mindlessly watching the television for hours results to a distracted mind that would definitely not be helpful in developing concentration for taking an exam.

Similar consequences to how our brains function occur in our present culture of blogs, social networks, newsfeeds and websites. Baroness Greenfield of the Oxford University called this effect of too much time in front of a computer as “mind change.” This is meant to be quite literal since overexposure to a multimedia system like the internet actually leads to the changes in the cellular wiring of our brains.

Nicholas Carr who is the author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains further explains that the way we think is shaped by the tools we use to think with like the map, the alphabet, the clock, and the printing press. According to Carr, "The net encourages the mental skills associated with the rapid gathering of small bits of information from many sources, but it discourages the kind of deeply attentive thinking that leads to the building of knowledge, conceptual thinking, reflection, and contemplativeness.”