The Internet Is Changing The Way We Think

Improved Essays
How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think The Internet is a continuously growing aspect in today’s society, especially in the terms of how it affects the way we think. Google, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are just a few of the several sites that people today are constantly craving gratification from. The Internet has taken actions in many categories that affect the way we think such as our attention, memory, and even the perception of ourselves. In this age of technology the Internet seems to have taken control over our everyday lives by influencing our behaviors. Attention plays an important role in the process of thinking. Without attention the other aspects of thinking such as memory, perception, creativity, problem solving, language, …show more content…
Memory is a process in which the mind stores information so that it can later be recollected for useful matters. However, the Internet is affecting the functioning of the memory process in people today. With the Internet being such a vast system even a typical session of social media browsing can cause an information burden and make it harder to store information in memory. The thought process of the brain when memory occurs is linked to connections of personal actions and experiences, therefore, searching the Internet for information causes the memories to be free because it is not tied with personal information so the thought process is only able to store bits of the information inquired from the Internet. For example, “If you can only remember the places to look for answers rather than the answers themselves, then even these dots will not be learned and therefore cannot be joined up with other dots to form an individual perspective of the world” (Greenfield 209). When this consistently happens the thought process begins to rely on the Internet and the constant storage it contains to replace the job of making memories to be stored. People today depend on the use of the Internet to hold their information because they cannot relate their findings on the Internet to specific incidents so it is harder for them to process a memory of the information learned. This refers back to the idea of …show more content…
This perfectly yet fake image on social media causes huge problems for other users of the Internet. People in today’s society look on the Internet and start to think about all the things that are wrong with their self image based off of the comparison of these fake people. Furthermore, this leads to the idea of the amount of likes and comments that are received on a picture or post on the Internet. Likes and comments on pictures mean a lot to some Internet users; many teens today constantly try to make perfect pictures just to receive the most likes and comments. These likes and comments cause teens to constantly crave the Internet for they believe having lots of followers or likes and comments makes them some type of famous. This idea goes to show how the Internet has changed the way we think, because people today are famous not for the purposeful reasons they used to be, but just for simply having other Internet users crave their pictures or post. These famous users, however, also make other Internet users feel invisible and cause another affects on self perception. Some people who view the images of the famous Internet users become very jealous and self conscious by the idea of these perfect people. The Internet gives people today an endless amount of people to

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Thesis For The Shallows

    • 1774 Words
    • 8 Pages

    “When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. It’s possible to think shallowly while reading a book, but that’s not the type of thinking the technology encourages and rewards” (116). Today we are not learning we are only memorizing which only lasts a couple of days at the most. It’s the rise of social media and other entertainment that has us hooked. We are no longer incorporating those lifelong skills we once had we are expecting to get the fish without fishing. In order to learn we have to know when its correct to use the web we have to learn how to limit ourselves and set standards because if we don’t we will soon be living in a life of “brighter software and dimer users, just like Carr states” (216). When it should really be the other way around we have to remember we are the users and computers should only be our tools not the item we think is indispensable. Reading The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr has made me more aware of the time I spend on the net. I don’t want the net to take over the way I think or act. For that reason, I will try to limit the amount of time I spend on the web, as well as limit my sons time on the web. I will try to encourage my two-year-old to do…

    • 1774 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This insightful perspective demonstrates the truth of the matter; while there are pros and cons of the internet it has a greater negative effect through memory loss, emotion and…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An article, from the book “They, Say I Say,” titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” written by Nicholas Carr, elaborates how the internet is changing the way humans think. Without research or evidence, Carr uses a play on emotion to draw in his readers. While using a collection of historical anecdotes, Carr argues that the internet has exploited the plasticity of the human brain.…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Google-Making USupid

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Our minds operate like high speed data processing machines it is not only built into the workings of the internet, but into the networks reigning business model. The faster we surf the web, the more it collects information about us and to feed us more junk. We leave behind data as we go from link to link, the more for them the better. Companies want to encourage us to leisurely read, or slowly concentrated thinking. It is in their economic interests to drive us into distractions. Carr states “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful” (326). He means that they would be able to receive a bit of information from us without proper instructions, and knowledgeable when they are for the most part ignorant. Technology has altered or impaired its function of our memories. Our long-term memory has unlimited capacity and our short-term memory has a limited capacity, and that storage is very…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nicholas Carr’s nonfiction book The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains is about how the internet is changing the way society thinks. As more technology is developed, the faster the way that thinking is altered. Carr provides multiple sources to credit his basis of the findings and gives multiple examples of the effects of the increase in internet usage. The advancements in technologies not only affect the speed of getting information, but also the manner in which the information can be seen. This affects humans’ abilities to multitask, read, and comprehend.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The internet, is it changing the way we think? An article written by John Naughton strives to challenge the reader to think on the social, political and cultural effect the internet has on humans. The target audience of his piece is the mature reader, familiar with psychology, or philosophy or technology. The piece would appeal to a person interested in just one of those fields, as the article touches on each subject. John Naughton provides his answer to is the internet changing the way we think through three strong rhetorical choices, the opinions of others, questions posed, and claims in juxtaposition.…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Internet has become a primary form of external or "trans active" memory where information is stored collectively outside the brain.” (CITE). Instead of having to memorize ideas and facts, we can “Google” them, giving us the advantage of saving time which would have been taken up by thinking. The internet also provides us with a source of validation and evidence to justify what we know as true.…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    We live in a digital world; it is in all parts of life. Technology today has everything shaped into the speediest and most advantageous forms possible to make individuals lives greater and more importantly, easier. The innovations and growth that have been made through recent years are astounding when compared to where the world was only a couple of years to ten years prior. With the web and everything connected to it, messaging, video calls, educational programs and shopping- the potential outcomes for technology later on are practically innumerable. With growing technology, there are risks and benefits preserving an online existence. In M.Fawcett’s essay, Google Never Forgets: A Cautionary Tale, the author warns the readers to be extra careful of what you decide to post on the Internet. The Internet creates the digital equivalent of an unauthorized biography to record your thoughts, life experiences, as well as your embarrassing stories. With the strong search engine, Google records everything you put on the web including many years before.…

    • 1662 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As technology develops, some people worry about the effects of those changes upon our society. Mr. Nicholas Carr, the author of “Is the Internet Making Us Dumber?” (Wall Street Journal) claims that the internet as a medium for information is having a detrimental effect upon the human brain and changing the way we think in a negative way. He claims that the internet has an excess of information and distractors that detract from our ability to focus, concentrate, and consolidate memory properly.…

    • 1055 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Internet holds infinite knowledge, answers, information, and entertainment; ultimately, the entire world in just one search engine, otherwise known as the World Wide Web. Constantly, mindlessly, and subconsciously we use the Internet, almost as if it’s become our second nature. Most of society finds gratification on instant information, now; “the average number of Google searches per day has grown from 9,800 in 1998 to over 4.7 trillion today” (Academicearth). We perceive this as a positive aspect as technology has improved drastically over the years, however, society may be ignoring the fact how the Internet is changing the way we think. Although the Internet may have positive attributes, studies have found that the “Google effect” is changing the way our brains interrupt information (Huffington). It…

    • 1389 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    According to Carr (2010), reasoning has been fundamentally altered by the Internet into superficial thought processes through skimming, diversions, and facile learning. The research confirms that the ‘mental calisthenics’ involved in surfing the Internet, consequently puts even more of a strain on the brain, which then results in the lack of comprehension (Carr 2010, p. 3). For example, navigating Wikipedia, where there are numerous links to other sub-topics, have been found to considerably increase distractibility and oversimplified thinking because of the countless information the brain is inundated with, such as advertisements, formats, and others. In essence, screen technology through the loss of focus and depth of thought has radically changed cognition, which is pernicious to an intellectual…

    • 1110 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A major problem arising in preteens, teens and young adults is the increasing use of social media and the impact it has been playing on their self-confidence. For as long as there have been strong influencers in society, there has been the issue of comparison. People have judged themselves based off how others appear since before there was even a television to showcase them, but with the increase of smartphones and the internet, so came the increase of something else far more harmful for this issue of comparison, social media. Social media, as a whole, gives a single person access to millions of other people and increases the pressure to appear flawless on their accounts. In the article “How Social Media is a Toxic Mirror”, published by Rachel Simmons in Time Magazine, Simmons’ main idea is how social media has become a method of directly comparing yourself to others based purely on what is posted on the internet.…

    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The brain has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions" (Carr 60). While reading Nicholas Carr 's article "Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains", one may feel they have taken a seat on the most intellectual and fascinating roller coaster. In the 2008 article published in the Atlantic, Carr effectively explains not only what an obsessive amount of surfing the web is progressively doing to our lives but in our lives. He does an exceptional job at delivering his findings to the audience without overly complicating it. While Carr establishes a solid foundation for his article he strengthens his position by using a great deal of evidence, intense language, and providing relatable information.…

    • 1167 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    If people are using the Web simply to look up quick little bits of information instead of taking the time to learn them they will be much less likely to memorize the knowledge that they are using. With all this information accessible with another quick search there is no need to commit to memory what they are learning. While it may make access to information quick and easy, Carr believes this will negatively impact our cognitive process. He believes that this availability of facts and data whenever we want it will,”… place[s] more pressure on our working memory, not only diverting resources from our higher reasoning faculties but obstructing the consolidation and the development of schemas”(Carr 192). With such ease of access we will eventually use it as a crutch for our knowledge and intelligence, hindering the intellectual growth of our generation. However, this is only if the internet is used in a certain…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Social Media And Self Esteem

    • 2303 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Social media has many negative effects on teen’s self-esteem. I support the ideas of the researchers who show that social media gives off negative connotations. In this selfie culture we have today many teens has two different lifestyles such as the internet persona and their physical human body. "We have a culture that conflates celebrity kinds of attention with being important and being heard," said Aimée Morrison, an associate professor of English specializing in new media studies at the University of Waterloo.”(Clarke). This culture has turned some people rude and they did not care about their surrounding but only to get the right lighting or perfect place. “In fact, I’ve seen friends get so caught up in getting a selfie that they are outright disrespectful, ignoring everyone and everything around them” (Menza). Our culture is more caught up on likes rather than making memories that will truly last forever. “Remember, the emotional boost we get from earning “likes” is temporary. Try to get that same feeling by creating an awesome memory—then you’ve captured a mental photo you can treasure forever”…

    • 2303 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays