Artifact 3: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

In the video Nicholas Carr talks about the book he wrote about what the internet is doing to our brains.  I personally found the parts that he discussed in the video to be extremely interesting.  He writes the book from his personal perspective and includes some of his life events involving technology.  He says that the start of it all was when he realized that he could no longer concentrate when reading books or doing other activities that require attentiveness.  I think that many people in today's society feel this same symptom of over internet use that he felt, but we may or may not attribute it to internet usage.

How do technological tools influence the way our brains work?  Well Carr explains that we are constantly being distracted throughout the day.  For instance, he talks about office people checking their emails up to 40 times per hour.  He says that these distractions are an issue because they prevent us from being able to think deeply or to transfer information from our short term memories into our long term ones.

What I found most interesting was his recount of moving into the mountains of Colorado being almost completely disconnected.  He has to become accustomed to living this way even though his brain still desires the internet.  He compares being without the internet to going through drug withdrawal.  This is interesting because it really demonstrates that the internet is, in fact, doing something to our brains.  Eventually though, his internet cravings subsided and he was able to cope with being disconnected.

I would love to try going even just a weekend without internet technology.  However, I have a feeling that it wouldn't go so well!  I just know that I would feel out of the loop and I feel like I would miss something important if people were not able to get in contact with me for a long period of time.  Anyway, this video kind of got me thinking about how unhealthy it probably is for people to sit in front of and stare at computers all day long.  I do believe that more people should try going without it so that they can really see how dependent they are on the internet.