Technology And Sleeping

In “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era,” Richard Restak considers the effect of technology on our brains. As we process increasing amounts of information at ever-faster speeds, Restak argues that our brains are undergoing “profound alterations” in order to adapt to the changing needs of our modern world. As technology connects us to more people, places, and information than ever before, Restak warns that we are losing important cognitive functions, in particular our ability to focus and concentrate. However Restak fails to mention that technology has created significant affordances as well. Allowing society to advance as a whole, via social media, e-mail, cell phones, and other various communications. Technology is reshaping our habits of mind.Yes technology created a slight defect to the mind but many advantages came about using technology as an asset.

The paper “Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price” by Matt Richtel discussed how internet, phones calls and other incoming information impact on people’s life. Researchers say it can be addictive. Matt Richtel states, “Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave” (225). Basically, Matt Richtel is saying using phones, e-mails and other incoming information can affect the behavior of people and their thought process. Some people think multitasking makes them more productive, but scientists say otherwise. They believes multitaskers have more trouble focusing and selecting unnecessary information. Also, the author is insisting that children who use a lot of electronics

“I am convinced that learning to live with both internal and external distractions is all about teaching the concept of focus.” (Rosen 11) Are we being driven to distraction? This question is posed in Larry Rosen's essay Driven To Distraction; he argues students are distracted by technology. He makes his argument effective through use of logos, tone and rhetorical patterns. However, Rosen's essay is weakened by not addressing opposing arguments and by using a false authority fallacy. He explains how technology greatly distracts students nowadays and then offers techniques we can apply to help increase their focus and encourage them to be less “plugged in”.

Purpose: To inform the audience about what sleep is and how it helps the body.

Some of the issues that result from dependency on modern media are the increase of becoming withdrawn from society, the loss of social skills and personal relationships with friends, family and other loved ones. Another issue that can arise as a result of dependency is the chance of becoming what is known as a “media junkie” where the modern media takes preference over anything else (losing touch with reality). The cell phone has taken away our ability to properly communicate with each other by using slang and abbreviations in place of proper English. People are becoming less active, less visible, and trusting with each other. Studies have shown that “gamers” or people who play games (game tournaments) over the internet for hours and hours without stopping are likely to lose social skills. People with addictions or dependency on modern media are similar to those of a drug addict. It has been shown to produce distress and isolation in many people who are deprived from these devices. I think that this a major concern for parents of students and this younger generation.

The Flip Side of Technology In his article “From The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” Nicholas Carr argues that the increasing usage of the internet has had a negative impact on the our attention span and the way our brains work. Carr states, “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr par 5). Carr maintains this idea throughout the article expressing his concerns for how the internet has shortened his attention span and ability to focus.

Today, you can see multiple people walking down the street with their heads buried in their phones tweeting about an event that just occurred or sending a quick text message to a friend. The technology and social media is just one of the many reasons why our society has a hard time maintaining attention. Mr. Schwartz had many respectable opinions in the article “Attention Lessons: A Need We Must Heed”. Within the article, I found many points of Mr. Schwartz’s argument that I agreed with, yet a couple of points and the solution that was presented I disagreed with. I believe society is driven by social media and a person needs focus to accomplish tasks, however, I disagree that maintaining attention is a skill and that children can be taught

Media multitasking is associated with symptoms of depression and social anxiety according to Mark W. Becker, Reem Alzahabi, and Christopher J. Hopwood’s study. These people conducted an experiment containing 318 participants. And the 318 people completed self-inventory tests to measure their media use, personality, depression, and social anxiety. The study suggests that the increased use of media multitasking show a risk to develop problems related to the individual’s mood and anxiety levels. With that being said this problem is raising concerns that media is replacing face to face interactions. “While overall media use among America’s youth increased by 20 percent over the past decade, the amount of time spent multitasking with media (simultaneously interacting with more than one form of media) increased by over 119 percent over the same period”( Becker, M. W., Alzahabi, R., & Hopwood, C. J. (2013)). Media multitasking has now been associated with attention control, meaning how to filter out any useless information and how to ignore distractions. Also in this study they looked at not only mood changes and anxiety disorders they also looked at traits of neuroticism and extraversion. All of these

This means that people rarely pay attention to what they are reading in the website. They do not focus on the text because there are too many distractions.It is not useful using only the internet. Many teenager use the internet and use the phone or put music while they find information and barely concentrated. However, Patricia Greenfield, a developmental psychologist who runs UCLA’s Children’s Digital Media Center review many studies on how media technology influence our way of thinking. Some of the studies indicate that video games and computer task increase the ability to focus more, but others studies indicate that it barely focus and it was more as an “automatic” thinking(Children media center). This show on how it can impact a human brain and not focus on what you are doing or

First of all, technology is making it very hard to focus and sustain attention. When discussing the article, Matt explains that “kids in front of screens... brains are going to be wired differently ”(par.7).

Many do not believe that we have a technology problem in today’s society. But, ninety-five percent of people use technology an hour before they go to sleep (How Technology Affects Sleep). This is an alarming amount of people who use technology before they go to sleep. You do not have to be looking directly at the technology to trigger the pineal gland to stop releasing melatonin (Kim). Many also believe that lack of sleep due to technology does not affect how they do their daily jobs. Seventy-five percent of those over 30 that reported not getting enough sleep said that when they were tired that their sleepiness effected their daily work (Tarkan). For a school age kid ten hours of sleep is needed. Teenagers also need about nine to ten

To begin with, “our ability to focus is being undermined by burst of information” (Richtel 5). Technology has created emails, texts and instant messages that floods our brains with information. This can cause distractions that interrupt creativity, deep thought,

Matt Richtel says in Attached to Technology and Paying a Price that “… even after multitasking ends, fractured thinking and lack of focus persists. In other words, this is also your brain off computers.”, meaning that if someone constantly juggles between television, cellphone, computer, etc., they are hurting themselves, and the consequences are present even if you are not using your electronics. If someone is not able to focus, then that person would not be able to solve problems in real life that would require all the abilities he/she has. For example in the article Attached to Technology and Paying a Price, Matt Richtel says that “He forgets things like dinner plans, and he has trouble focusing on his family.”, when talking about Kord Campbell. Having trouble to focus and forget simple dinner plans or expending time with the people you love is unheard of, and it should have remained that way, his multitasking is taking from him great possible memories, and times. In addition, Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist at the University of California in San Francisco says: “We are exposing our brains to an environment and asking them to do things we weren’t necessarily evolved to do. We already know the consequences.” If our brains were not made to do what we are making them do, we shouldn’t keep doing it, we shouldn’t be deliberately damaging our brains just because we want to do several things at the same

Even though technology has a negative connotation when sleep is involved, technology actually can help, instead of hinder, your ability to sleep. There are plenty of apps created for the purpose of helping the downloader sleep better. With all the negatives, the positives of technology are often overlooked, such as these apps. Technology would continue to assist today’s society, even though there are some downsides.

Unlike previous generations who were “introduced” to the internet, television and social media, the present generation is “born” in it. By this statement, it is implied that children today are much closer to technology and media than adults are, and so, are more likely to be affected by it. Perhaps, the highest impact on the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development of children and adolescents is by media due to its ready availability through Smart phones, tablet PCs and other portable devices. This paper attempts to evaluate some of the influences of media on various aspects of child and adolescent development.