Is The Internet Altering Our Brains?

Is The Internet Altering Our Brains?

www.blacklistednews.com

The Internet is not just changing the way people live but altering the way our brains work with a neuroscientist arguing this is an evolutionary change which will put the tech-savvy at the top of the new social order.

Gary Small, a neuroscientist at UCLA in California who specializes in brain function, has found through studies that Internet searching and text messaging has made brains more adept at filtering information and making snap decisions.

But while technology can accelerate learning and boost creativity it can have drawbacks as it can create Internet addicts whose only friends are virtual and has sparked a dramatic rise in Attention Deficit Disorder diagnoses.

Small, however, argues that the people who will come out on top in the next generation will be those with a mixture of technological and social skills.

"We're seeing an evolutionary change. The people in the next generation who are really going to have the edge are the ones who master the technological skills and also face-to-face skills," Small told Reuters in a telephone interview.

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The next step in human evolution?

According to this article, it may very well be those who are now seen as "nerds" who become the most successfull in what they do.

I think that there is little doubt that prolonged and extensive net use changes the way our brain looks at certain things - from browsing and searching to blogging to emailing, we are accessing a vast amount of information in a relatively short space of time.

As people spend more time on the net, they use certain area's of their brain more, in effect exercising it, which may cause certain brain functions to develop more.

The article states that there are downsides to this, but that in the future, the most successfull people will have a combination of tech skills and social skills - something not readily seen at the moment

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reply to post by budski


The internet is definitely the future. Michio Kaku calls it a Type 1 Telephone. Face-to-face skills might always be important but such interaction is becoming less important (or perhaps less necessary is a better word) as our technology improves. We are already seeing the beginning of this with video chat, telecommuting, etc.

I Know for a fact that the Brain can't distinguish very well between real life and fantasy in terms of experience

so first porn and Games

and now Virtual reality will have major impacts




I actually have real concerns for the growth of depression as our minds believe that we have been stimulated in doing all these things and real life becomes lack luster


particularly in regards to sex, sex addiction has become rampant

much harder to be stimulated in a monogamous relationship... If your brain thinks you have been having threesome all along

Im already seeing what the article is predicting. The most successful folks i know right now are tech savy AND also possess great face-to-face or people skills. Thats a no-brainer.

Multitasking anyone, I believe the internet is getting us there faster than any other outlet.......... We are being changed in some way although we may not know the whole scope of things, we know we are changing...Think of how different our kids are to the way we grew up...I never had a cell phone, internet,beeper, text messaging( now that's changed our kids)..Etc....Times are a changing and sometimes I don't think for the better..

This reminds me of the theories proposed in the documentary Building Gods

Google Video Link

I've always felt that my generation is/was at the forefront of computer technology, it's almost like we grew up together. When i was in second grade, we had a computer lab, with the newest, latest and greatest Apple II's. We had a lecture on how careful we should be with these new machines. the older i got, the be faster and more colorful they got. I thought Oregon Trail was the best game ever! And KidPix never got old. I guess we just didn't realize as it was happening, how fast the technology was actually moving, instead we just kept up with it and loved it. Now i see how different this lifestyle we are all so used to is from previous generations. Life without a cell phone? What if your car died? Or you got lost?

An annoying social side effect I've noticed is when I want to check a fact or figure (in a conversation or debate, etc), and there is no internet around to do so, I feel lost or stumped. I'm just so used to information at my fingertips, literally, that I feel disconnected when I don't have access to it.

And back in high school, when i was in chat rooms alot (i know, i know, a total waste of time), i actually had a dream, in text. just scrolling text. that's when i knew i had to lay off for a while. But to get back to the point, we really don't know the long term effects of the technology around us, and the for the folks that are around 25 and under, we are like the guinea pigs in a mass experiment. Good luck!