The Real Transformers: How Technology Is Changing The Brain

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.

In bedrooms today we have many gadgets, we have televisions, game counsels, tablets, and our phones. All of these thing affect how we sleep. Ninety-five percent of people use technology an hour before they go to bed (How technology affects sleep). Whether this is sending texts, emailing, playing games, or browsing through social media. In today 's society we find this as normal everyday routines. Studies show that we should abstain from using technology two hours before we are wanting to go to sleep (How Technology Affects Sleep). How does technology effect how we sleep? Our technology that we use daily gives off many colors of light. The color that is believed to disrupt our sleeping patterns is in particular the blue light. Blue light prevents the

In his essay “Does the Internet Make You Dumber?”, Nicholas Carr argues that technology leaves us unable to be as thorough in our previous mental abilities and distracts us, through changes to our mental pathways and biological mechanisms. Nicholas Carr uses the appeal of data, the frightening effects of living in the digital age, and his own conclusions from his exhaustive research to structure his examination.

Technology in today's world affect everyone about the same since we can not live without. The amount of different activities and possibilities to do on the internet using different devices is immense . Whatever you want if it is food,games, or researching something anyone can receive in a matter of seconds. Tammy Kennon who is the author of , “ 5 New Brain Disorders that Were Born Out of the Digital Age” states the negatives about the technology devices that run the world. She tells us about how our patience, attention spans, and memory are all affected due to that fact that we are obsessed with electronics. In today’s world everyone relies on web searches like google to answer a question or do something for them. When a research was conducted by researchers they found out that”[O]ne -Third of them did not even try, reaching for google immediately” this shows how much people rely

“The Net seizes our attention only to scatter it,” Carr says. Then the Swedish neuroscientist Torkel Klingberg tells Carr human beings “wants more information, more impression, and information complexity”. “When our brains is overtaxed, we find ‘distractions more distracting,’” and “we can’t translate new information into schemas, while our ability to learn suffers”. “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing,” writes Carr. Bruce Friedman, a blogger who describes how the internet is altering his mental habits to Carr told him “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the Web or in print”. Jim Taylor, Ph.D. writes in his article. “Using the internet is like a jet skiing, in which the jet skier is skimming along the surface of the water at high seed exposed to a broad vista, surrounding by many distractions, and only able to focus fleetingly on one

The author addresses the undeniable issues of society’s constant connection to technology. The brain can develop imbalances, for example, deficits in ability to concentrate, short attention, memory span, and emotional disturbances, such as depression (Gwinn

The most noticeable effect of technology usage is a shortage of memory; not as in computer memory, but human memory. With Google constantly at people’s fingertips, it’s easy to look up information rather than memorize it. Carr cites in his article that tech users "cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful," instead of relying on the internet to quickly search for facts without having to commit them to memory (7). He also states that humans are losing the capacity to ‘deep read’ and cannot unearth meaning in articles the way that they used to in the time of the printing press and less evolved pieces of technology (3). In Gigi and Small’s article, they mention that the prefrontal cortex, or the area in the brain that handles short-term memory, could be altered by technology usage (4). However, Kristina Konidaris, a student who uses multiple technological devices daily, states that the technology does not have a profound impact on her memory. Instead, she states that her memory is more affected by her interest in the subject and her feelings rather than the technology used, although sometimes it may be easier to remember things she has handwritten rather than typed. Also included in Gigi and Small’s

In the article Are We Addicted to Technology, author Ms. Kleinman claims that we may be into our devices to much and has taken too much of our everyday lives. For people who constantly go into their devices, “ then you got the classic pattern of someone who’s in a fatigue cycle” says Dr. Ramlakhan, meaning people are addicted to technology so much, they have extreme tiredness. Dr. Ramlakhan works at the privately run nightingale Hospital, and what she has noticed is, many of her patients are in front of the screen all the time, even when they try to sleep. Another quote by Dr. Ramlakhan is “they go to bed but can’t sleep, or fall asleep exhausted and wake up tired.” Even when people have to sleep, they don’t...but instead they just go into

Forgetting used to be a failing, a waste, a sign of senility. Now it takes effort. It may be as important as remembering.” Harris uses this quote from James Gleick to introduce the topic of memory in his book. Harris (2014) asserts that with the constant connection of the internet, people are memorizing less info and “off-loading” memories onto their devices. “Human memory was never meant to call up all things, after all, but rather to explore the richness of exclusion, of absence.” (pg. 164) With new technology it is possible to know almost everything with the click of a button. Within seconds we can search for a friend’s birthday or the name of that cast member on our favorite show. We have “the illusion of knowledge” which brings up the question of what do we truly know as compared to that of a computer? Human memory is substantially different from that of computers. While a computer's entire memory could be concentrated down to ones and zeroes, the human mind is much more complex, relying on certain instances for us to recall our memories. “Memory is a lived, morphing experience...not some static file from which we withdraw the same data time and again.” (Harris, 2014, pg.

The advancement of technology has constantly shaped the way society operates as a whole, but not too often do people take a further look in to realize if technology is affecting our individual brains. Those points of analysis get addressed in the book The Shallows (2010) as the author Nicholas Carr scientifically examines how technology may or may not be subconsciously altering our brains. Technology is constantly evolving, such the same as humans, but does the advancement in technology directly affect the development of our brains? And if so, is this occurrence something that individuals should begin to worry about? Although these are arguable questions, Carr does an excellent job of analyzing evidence and facts to better understand how technology might be affecting the human brain.

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

The consequence of a deficiency or poor working memory of our brain functioning and overall intelligence levels are tough to over-estimate. Think of it, when was the last time you memorized someone’s phone number? Typed without the computer fixing or telling you what errors to avoid/fix? Or read handy historical books without searching the web (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.)? Every day you’re clicking, typing, scrolling without getting tired, not knowing the effect it might have on your body. Technology is nowadays changing and shaping the way we live our daily lives, how we learn, and the effects of communication skills.

A computers are machines that use a binary system to store, memorize, and manipulate information, just quite like the brain. A computer is able to carry out a series of logical operations, but yet so is our brain. The computer has memory that stores data and central processing unit that carries out certain steps, but yet so does the human brain. From the first computer just being used vacuum tubes, to use the silicon chips, there has been a technological revolution. Each year for the last ten years, technology has been becoming smaller and more capable of faster processing. Technology makes it possible for the use of countless labor-saving machines. This

Today, most research done on technology’s effect on sleep has been focused on how technology makes sleeping more difficult. Technology can become a distraction and keep your brain active as a result of using it before going to sleep. The National Sleep Foundation even discovered through a poll that “nine of 10 Americans reported

Growing up as a millennial technology has continued to evolve. It has become an issue though, because many individuals are constantly abusing and overusing it. It is hard not to use technology because it’s used for just about everything including work, school, and for our own personal use. It has become a very reliable source of communication, however, it is way too over used. This type of communication can cause us to distance ourselves from the outside world and cause physical and psychological harm to our bodies. “ “Digital Dementia”, is a term coined by top German neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer in his 2012 book of the same name, it is used to describe how the overuse of digital technology is resulting in the breakdown of cognitive abilities in a way that is more commonly seen in people who have suffered a head injury or psychiatric illness” (Gwinn). If people continue to rely on technology without