Are Smartphones Making USupid? No. Way

Another point as to why I believe smartphones may be hurting us is through my own personal experiences that align with the statistics Twinge wrote about. In the article Twinge states “parents may be inclined to encourage their kids to stay home and study rather than to

While reading a famous article by Nicholas Carr titled “Is Google Making us Stupid?,” I have concluded that it is not. I disagree with Carr’s argument because his view point corresponds with how technology is advancing. The way that the internet has shaped our lives has taken a great toll on the way we view the world now. There are a couple of ways that technology is improving. One would include books that are paperback turning into nooks and kindles along with blogging and texting. Another study shows that our brains are also changing and growing along with the internet. This shows that technology had advanced from the 70’s and 80’s when there wasn’t widespread access to the internet.

Studies have found that as the phone use increases, your attention goes elsewhere, “revealing that the more heavily student relied on their phones in their everyday lives, the greater the cognitive penalty they suffered” (Carr 3). The more focus a cell phone receives the more a person will suffer mentally. At UCSD around 520 students were given two standardized tests of intellectual acuity. “The only variable in the experiment was the location of the subjects’ smartphones. Some of the students.. place their phones in front of them on their desks; others were told to stow their phones in their pockets.. others were required to leave their phones in a different room” (Carr 3). The results from this study were conspicuous. It’s self-evident that anyone with phone insight had worst scores than those who didn't have their phones at all or had them in their pockets. Technology has take over us and it is draining our

Even though smart phones are supposed to make working easier, studies have shown that they actually hurt our performance. In 2015, a Journal of Experimental Psychology study had 166 people to test. The experiment was to have the participants work on a challenging task while their phones start beeping and buzzing. The results showed that the worker became messier and had their attention elsewhere, whether or not they checked their phone. Dr. Adrian Ward is a psychologist and marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin, he has been working with the effects of smart phones on our thoughts and decision making. Dr. Ward believes that we have grown so attached to our phones that they reduce our intelligence with their presence. To test this theory, Dr. Ward and three colleagues began a clever experiment to test his idea. They decided to enlist 520 undergraduate students at UCSD and make them perform two standard tests of intellectual acuity. The first test evaluated “available cognitive capacity”, it’s a test to measure how fully a person’s mind can focus on a single task. The second test gauged “fluid intelligence”, a person’s ability to understand and answer an unfamiliar problem. The only difference was the location of the student’s smart phone. Some students had their phone on the desk, while others had it in their bag or pocket. Others were even asked to leave their phone in a different room. The results of this test showed that “As the phone’s proximity increased, brainpower decreased” (pg.3).

“More than three billion people worldwide now use the internet (Time), and 80 percent of them access if from their smartphones” (Smart Insights). A smartphone is a mobile phone that performs many of the functions of a computer, typically having a touchscreen interface, and much more. There is an abundant amount of smartphone brands out there in the world and while they all cost different prices, they all perform the same job. Each person uses their smartphone for various reasons, whether it’s for work or to make calls or texts. Smartphones have changed society in various ways, both good and bad. Although countless individuals think that smartphones have ruined American society, smartphones have actually benefited society because of more safety precautions, information on hand, and entertainment.

I use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Pinterest. Although all of the platforms listed have various purposes, they help to cure my boredom and keep me in touch with the world. On most accounts, my social media is a diary that I leave open to the world. Using social media for business and communications is a very useful and innovative resource. When handled by the right people it helps the greater good. For example, the news can now reach more people at faster rates than it could traditionally. You can talk to your relatives face to face over Skype. Social media helps people find jobs by assisting in making connections to others. It is a useful tool, but in most cases, it has fallen into the wrong hands in such a way that news is no longer true "news". It has become a race to popularity in the form of likes and retweets rather than driving interest on real

“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how we do it” (Qualman, n.d). According to Merrain Webster 1828, “social media is form of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messaging, and other online (such as video). Technology has involved into something that everyone can utilize effectively just by the swipe of finger or by pressing a single button. We don’t have to go the post office for hand written letter from families and friends abroad, but we can get them through simply opening a chat box online. However, social media has become the addiction to many young people today and even adults alike. We eat with your phones. We study and communicate with others on your various devices. We even go into the bathroom with our devices to ensure that we don’t miss a tweet, recent Instagram post or a WhatsApp message.

With social media, such as “Twitter” or “Instagram,” it keeps everyone informed and help them stay up to date with the events in the world they are living in. Some might suggest that we have other ways of keeping up to date, newspapers for example, but by the time the paper arrives at your doorsteps, the news is already dated. As Carr has mentioned “ The Net provides a high-speed system for delivering responses and rewards.” It keeps you informed with events that are currently happening at that exact moment. Looking up information is easier and more convenient as well.

Social Media Throughout the course of humanity, humans have been constantly exploring and adapting to new and creative ideas. In this day and age we have found ourselves in a new technology based generation. Technology is such an epidemic around the world today, causing many to be addicted to the social media aspect. But we have to ask ourselves is social media really worth all our time, energy, and focus?

As I read the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicolas Carr, I cannot help but see the influence of how internet use can affect your thinking ability and create a negative effect on how think. We can use the internet for all sorts of resources in our daily lives but, the problem is that nobody puts the work in anymore and is finding the fastest way to get the “A,” while not grasping the concept resulting in them not being knowledgeable in their field of work. By them just skimming instead of understanding, they are not fully learning. For example, many of us can look at something and not remember what it was that we looked at the following day. This paper will be discussing the pros and cons of Nicolas Carr’s thoughts on Google, and how the search engine turned GPS, email, and so on is affecting the brains of today.

In accordance with the article, “Are Smartphones Making Us Stupid?”, I believe that smartphones are not making us stupid. First of all, smartphones help us to acquire more knowledge and information. The article states, “The fact that we can ask a question and get an answer, wherever we are, means that our discussions can get past disputes over facts so that we can talk about the real issues; what we make of the facts.” Often times in an argument, people fight over basic facts instead of the real issues. With a smartphone, you are one Google search away from those facts, and then you can form an opinion and argue like a champion. That’s pretty smart if you ask me. In addition, the author states, “Because these devices are always with us, we

Twitter, 995 followers. Instagram, 974 followers. Facebook, 551 friends. Snapchat, 329 friends. What do these numbers mean? Popularity? Beauty? Intelligence? These numbers mean nothing. All these ‘followers’ and ‘friends’ I have really aren’t my friends, they are just people I met once or twice, someone I went to school with, or someone I don’t even know. So why do we sit on social media and scroll for hours at a time? Is it because were bored? Alone? I’m not saying that technology is evil, it has made amazing advances, and can keep us in contact with people or help us to meet new ones. Technology makes us alone because it interferes with our basic human needs such as interaction, affection and attention.

According to the Huffington Post there are multiple effect that smartphone use has on all of us. Some of the effect are: People forget how to talk, smartphones affect our sleep, people can’t focus, people die at the hands of texting, or people’s I identities is defined by their smartphone. If these effect are considered to make a person ‘dumber’, then the internet and smartphones makes students dumber. This does not just effect students but everyone who owns a smartphone and has access to

Human beings need to feel connected with family and friends to provide us with the needed emotional support (Harris). Social media offers an easy way to stay in connected with many different types of people. We can stay connected with others regardless of where they live. It is being used in many different ways, such as socializing, exchanging ideas, sharing creativity, and collaborating with others.

Smartphones are used every day around the world and nearly sixty-four percent of Americans own one. Smartphones and their impact on the human brain is a question of controversy. Do smartphones really indeed make us dumber? Phones may be part of our everyday lives, but they certainly are not making us dumber in society. Phones make us more educated and keep us more informed of our surroundings. They also allow us to socialize more in a society that likes to spread information on the internet. Phones are a positive source of knowledge, even though many would disagree. The usage of a phone improves our mentality to think and learn in an efficient way that we carry with us every way we go. Smartphones do not make unintelligent people in society,