The Digital era is helpful.
By Liz Richardson
The Digital Age has been labeled as the bane of our society’s intelligence for years. It’s the cause of our laziness, our stupidity, and our loss of health. But is it, really? Or does humankind just need a scapegoat for those feelings?
There are opportunities in this era to learn more than ever before, not lose out on intelligence. Take content on the Internet, for example. In a study published in Educational Media International, it is shown how different intelligences can utilize the Internet. For instance, those with linguistic intelligence (who learn by language) make use of e-mail and chat forums to learn with colleagues. Those with spatial intelligence, who learn by visuals, can pick up skills in the numerous how-to videos found all over the Internet. That’s the key to the Internet’s use—everyone can learn in their specific way by finding content that speaks to them.
Much of the Internet is useless. There’s no denying that. Social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, are no exception. But behind all the nonsensical updates, users are being taught how to communicate with other people. By making mistakes like handling drama over Facebook, it’s possible to learn what is and is not socially appropriate.
The digital age is helping social intelligence. Before this era, it was possible to go days without speaking to anyone. These days, society is under constant conversation—someone’s always texting, chatting, or calling. This connection may be overwhelming, but it’s a good lesson for dealing with real life and prioritizing who, or what, needs to be handled first.
This constant connection branches all over the world, thanks to the Internet. It’s possible to pull up accounts of new stories happening halfway across the globe without ever leaving the house or waiting for a newscast. Thousands of years of world history are available with just a click. Digitized versions of classic literature are everywhere for the taking. There are so many chances to learn on the web; we just have to take them.
The Internet is both a blessing and a curse. If used the wrong way, say for only surfing Facebook or watching mindless videos, of course it can lead to a loss of intelligence. It’s just the same in real life. If people only watch talk shows and read romance novels, they’re going to be unable to intelligently function as well. The Digital Age isn’t the cause of our stupidity and laziness—we are. Just like in every other age, we have to consciously use the Digital Age for human advancement.
Liz Richardson is the copy editor for the Glacier.
Graphic by Matt Congreve
It has gone too far.
By Amanda Panicucci
The Internet is chipping away at the brain, making of it a concrete sponge. A study has been conducted by Gary Small, a UCLA psychiatry professor, showing strong evidence that the area of the brain affecting problem solving and decision-making differs when comparing those who use the Internet frequently and those who do not. This leads to the belief that the digital age we find ourselves is harming human intelligence and overall health.
Many students find themselves thinking some of the following: “Why do the math problem when a calculator will do it for me?” or, “Why open a book when I can just Google it?” With all the answers before our fingers, books seem obsolete, but so does the old method of actually having to work out the solutions to our problems.
The study proved that, due to the Internet’s many attention-grabbing images and a web page’s natural tendency to have many distractions, the brain suffers cognitive overload; meaning, the more often our brains have to shift focus, the more taxing it is on our minds. The resources we use to understand what we focus on only stretch so far, and as our brain tries to store it all, its attention is quickly called to a new task. In other words, the little people some envision in our minds have to constantly switch tasks when they were just starting the one requested previously. Evidence is leading experts to believe constant mental disruption leads to hindering children’s emotional development areas, leading to hyperactivity and other psychological difficulties.
The digital age is reprogramming our brains and harming human health. Though we may have created an easy-access wealth of knowledge, we subject ourselves to constant mental fatigue, and often without realizing it! We reprogram our brains to be less fit in problem-solving and look for easily found solutions, not just to who our twenty-third president was, but also in considering serious life-altering decisions. This harms our health because as we become less able to mentally maneuver our consciousness through important problems we face in everyday life, we tax ourselves with overexposure to too many flying bits of information at once. We lose energy that could go towards developing the brain’s ability to handle the problems and debilitate ourselves in facing life as a whole.
This is akin to doing Statistics problems and a Com. 101 paper simultaneously; one will quickly tire. So next time one decides it’d be great to look at a Facebook page, consider that each ad breaks the mind’s concentration, causing more biological tension than necessary.
Amanda Panicucci is a staff writer for the Glacier.
