Is The Internet Destroying Your Attention Span Analysis

On the other hand, Steven Pinker’s article strongly disagrees at the fact that the internet affects the human brain. His defensive points primarily explain how without the internet a lot of today discoveries and new inventions wouldn’t be possible. Also he defends the fact that distraction or addiction is not a new phenomenon. Regardless of whether the internet is a popular utility or not, distraction would still be an occurring issue. It is quoted: “If electronic media were hazardous to intelligence, the quality of science would be plummeting.” Also, “Yes the constant arrival of information packets can be distracting or addictive, especially to people with attention deficit disorder. But distraction is not a new phenomenon. The solution is not to bemoan technology but to develop strategies of self-control as we do with every other temptation in life.” Steven Pinker is trying to get the reader to understand that the internet doesn’t essentially make you dumber but it does hinge at one’s attention span. Outside of the internet distractions are common everywhere. One can become distracted by their job, parents, work, internet, ect. Because of these interruptions Steven Pinker’s makes it known that all distractions require self-control. If one doesn’t have self control over an issue they will

In the article “Addicted to Distraction” by Tony Schwartz, he argues that the internet has a relentless pull on humans. He goes into detail on how the internet interrupts all daily activity. Schwartz also explains how he is also a victim to the internet and how he is overcoming the overuse of it. The internet does have a grasp on the attention of humans. People willingly give up their primary focus and activities just to check their devices. People are imprisoned to the internet and don’t even realize that it is leading to a deterioration of their learning ability.

Tony Schwartz wrote an article called “ Addicted to Distraction” on November 28, 2016 to inform the readers about how the internet is a distraction and how distractions can affect your life. One of the main points in this article is that people use the internet for non important things. Another point is stated in paragraph 14, “ The problem is that we humans have a very limited reservoir of will and discipline.” Through out the article, Shwartz did not only write the article to only talk about his own addiction, he also wrote it to where the readers can relate to it and to compare it to their very own distraction.

The Internet is something that some consider their lifesavers, while others believe that it takes their life away. The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr is a novel that explores the different areas of how new technologies affect humans in different ways, regarding multi-tasking and distractions, to how new technologies make us lose a little part of ourselves. Throughout the book Carr puts forward very strong arguments, but then loses creditability with his use of fallacies in argument.

Students may easily lose their attention and concentration with easy access to such incredibly rich store of information. With such new technologies as television, internet and social networks, people nowadays tend to multitask more often as they have easy access to large amount of information. However, such easy access may sometimes be a distraction. Study report “Your Brain on Computers” shows that heavy multitaskers perform up to 20% worse on most tests compared to performance of light multitaskers. Working efficiency of people, who multitask, are claimed to be significantly lower. The same is with concentration. As a result, they are not engaged in working process. Students tend to be easily distracted with this situation. For example, combining doing homework with operating on Twitter, phone or YouTube results in poor engagement of a student into deep thinking process, according to Winifred Gallagher, who is the author of Rapt. He also points out that nowadays high school and college students have decreased capacity of serious thinking because of multitasking and distraction. Moreover, Tyler Cowen, economist and famous blogger, claims that nowadays information tends to come in shorter and smaller portions and that explains why our generation encourages short reading. Since online information is always presented in short written passages, the web prevents user from concentration and contemplation. As an illustration, Nicholas Carr, the speaker at MIT and Harvard,

The internet is an excellent place to explore our mind and put our thoughts together; however, it also has a negative effect to our brains, and the more we use it the more it decrease our intelligence. In this essay “Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber?” by Nicholas Carr, he argues about the immoral side of the internet. According to Carr, “When we’re constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking” (22). Carr’s pint of view about the internet is that it does not make us smarter in any way; if anything it make us dense and slow. Scientific study have shown that most people who stayed on the internet quit a lot are more likely to damage their brains mentally. According to Carr, the internet is also a place to waste our time. Carr backed up his arguments with studies from scientists, researches and even books. In these essay, Carr’s appeals to logic and understanding is the strongest; whereas his appeals to ethos and his appeals to pathos are finite.

Communication with our society and the aptitude for reading has been transformed by the Internet as we, no matter who we are or what we use, adapt to the mechanism of technology and become a less intelligent, shallow community. Due to the many hours we spend on our electronic devices and the fast-paced reading we’ve adjusted to, our brains have become psychologically less perceptive of how the Internet is affecting our everyday lives. We need to make note of our daily habits and how much time we spend online, for the Internet will continue to affect generation after

Remember when you were in class, and just couldn’t bring yourself to pay attention to that boring lesson on how to use the quadratic equation? You probably thought of your favorite television show, or texting that one attractive person on Facebook, right? Well, many people seem to believe that this social media is to blame for your attention span. Virginia Heffernan, however, wrote an essay for the New York Times titled the “Attention-Span Myth” not believing that to be the case. Despite not having some very strong logos, through uses of ethos and pathos she executed an essay successfully on the myth of social media being to blame for people having weak attention spans.

According to Nicholas Carr, people are losing their attention span to fast because of sites like google. Nicholas Carr say that something is tinkering with his mind, he can feel it. Just as he quoted the scene from the Odyssey movie when the astronaut is taking the memory out Hal the computer. He compares to himself when he reads a book, after three pages he loses his concentration and tries to look for something else to do. He says this happens because that information is so easy to

Nicholas Carr published The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains in 2011 as a result of his own personal experiences and observations of his own behavior. The book was published by W.W. Norton & Company with ISBN 978-0-393-33975-8. Carr began working on the book after he noticed that since the birth of the internet, he did not think in the same ways that he used to think; he was easily distracted and had trouble concentrating on tasks requiring a lot of thought (2011). This effect, he noticed, was not unique to him. Many of his colleagues reported that they too had lost a lot of interest in reading books, had trouble concentrating and were easily distracted (Carr, 2011). What if, Carr wondered, everyone doesn’t just prefer to do their reading on the internet for its inherent convenience and speed but rather, what if the internet was actually changing the way we all think?

Is the internet making us smarter or dumber? People continuously argue whether this rise of electronic use and internet in our lives is a negative or positive aspect. In June 5, 2010 Wall Street Journal article, Nicholas Carr raises and answer the intriguing question,“Does the Internet Make You Dumber?”Nicholas Carr argues that the internet has bad effects on our brain. He says that the internet makes it harder to remember anything, and that is harder to move memories into long term memory. Those who are continually distracted by emails, alerts, and text messages understand less than a person who can concentrate. Nicholas Carr points that the internet can change the way our brain acts. He states that those who use the internet are shallow, and the internet is causing irreversible damage to our thought processes and making us stupid. A week later, Steven Pinker counters Nicholas Carr’s assertions in his own New York Time article,“Mind Over Mass Media.”He argues that electronic technologies are not as horrible as some may make it seem, and he starts his article by addressing how“New forms of media have always caused moral panics”(199). Throughout his article, Pinker explains why critics, who accuse electronic technology as harming to human intelligence, are wrong. He suggests that,“these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart”(200). Through media and social networking, the internet brings people closer together and provides convenience for people’s life.

We often encounter distractions all around in our daily lives. Our attention is divided between different tasks, which make it difficult to focus. The internet plays an important role in distracting individuals to focus the mind and sustain concentration. According to Nicholas Carr, “When we 're constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking.”(Carr 224). The internet plays an important role in why it is difficult for individuals to focus the mind and sustain concentration. The internet has many distractions that can often lead us to multitasks and not fully focus on one task. For example, I have seemed students in class using their laptops not for education purposes but searching

Concealed Harms In The Digital Generation Although the recent technological advance contributed in elevating efficiency and raising living standards, newly spawned threats and risks are devilishly dangerous and destructive. The article Hyper and Deep attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes by N. Katherine Hayles illustrated an unique approach. In the article Hayles describes that there are two types of cognitive styles: Hyper Attention and Deep Attention. “Hyper Attention is characterized by switching focus rapidly among different task … having a low tolerance for boredom and Deep Attention is characterized by concentrating on a single object for long periods... having a high tolerance for long focus time.”

Over the years, technology has increased in usage within many ways and has caused successful changes in a person’s lively routine. However, technology has evolved since the very beginning which concern has grown over the negative effects of its excessive use. Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” addresses the tendency of technology to create a sort of mental laziness where people look for instant answers rather than thinking for themselves. Daphne Bavelier, C. Shawn Green, and Matthew W.G. Dye have written in “Children, Wired: For Better and for Worse” on the transient and persistent effects of technology on children, particularly in terms of media exposure of television, movies, and video games. Additionally, Matt Richtel, writer for The New York Times, states in “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price” that the tendency of the brain to respond to immediate stimuli has a negative impact on the average user, ranging from disinterest to daily tasks to the risky behavior of texting and driving. Ultimately, these three articles agree that regardless of potential conveniences of heavy technology use, the tradeoff is something to be strongly considered.

Using the internet for so long has made us addicted, and we constantly rely on it. If you are doing a simple task, such as reading a book, it is a lot harder to concentrate because of the distraction that comes with the Net. Carr’s take on this is