How the Internet, Smartphones Affect Memory

Name Institutional Affiliation Course Code/Title Instructor Date How the Internet, Smartphones Affect Memory Introduction Four decades have elapsed since the invention of the Internet made disruptive changes in the way people have access to information. The impacts of this technological revolution on the human brain is still a question under intensive debate. One particular concern is about how the Internet affects the human memory or the capacity to remember (Mills 385). Early evidence on scepticism about the effects of any disruptive technology on humans can be traced back to 370 BCE when Socrates warned his students about the dangers of writing. In Socrates’ immortalized views, Plato’s dialogue contains sceptic views shared by the ancient philosopher that writing leads to forgetfulness among learners who have tendency to writer instead of memorising. Socrates believed that when students write, they produce external characters that are not part of themselves and such a habit will discourage the application of their memory that is within them (Mills 385). A new version of Socrates thoughts has hit scientists, teachers, parents, and the public with the emergence of computer technologies that allow easy access to information. An article by Nicholas Carr titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid” was published in 2008 to raise scepticism over the increased reliance on Google search engine to find information (Carr np). Since then, there have been endless debates over what the Internet is capable of doing to the human cognition and there have not been conclusions yet. With scientists increasingly getting concerned whether people are likely to remember information accessed using Internet-enabled devices such as smartphones, just as students are more likely to recall ideas and facts they believe will be on an examination, evidence collected from different research studies indicate that the Internet reprograms memory, improves brain function, encourages multitasking, and improves attention span. While the Internet and smartphones are thought to alter the brain functions, research conducted by the Pew Research Centre in 2010 shows that as people increasingly use the Internet and internet-enabled devices such as smartphones, they become more intelligent and can make better decisions. The research involved 895 critics and technology stakeholders who participated in an online survey to respond to questions in regards to their expectations of socio-political and economic changes expected by the year 2020 (Anderson np). Study results indicated that 76% of the respondents disagreed with Nicholas Carr’s statement that Google made people stupid. Carr, the eminent tech analyst and scholar had published a provocative cover story for The Atlantic titles “Is Google making us Stupid? (Naughton np)” during the summer of 2008. In the article, he argued that the distractions experienced during web browsing and the ease of making online searches had significantly limited his concentration capacity (Carr np). He argued his case citing that he had become a skimmer and a browsing reader instead of an engaged and deep reader. In his defence, Carr quoted research findings from neuroscientists who documented that the brain has evolved to be more plastic than scientists understood it hitherto (Pasquinelli np). In simpler terms, the scientists meant that the brain has the capacity to reprogram itself with time and Carr blames such reprogramming activities on the effect of Internet usage. However, in 2010, psychologists Daniel J. Simons and Christopher Chabris from Union College and the University of Illinois respectively published an opinion article that contradicted with Carr’s view (Pasquinelli np). The psychologists noted that there are no experimental studies to show that using new technologies would radically alter the brain organization in a manner that it will affect an individual’s ability to focus. Therefore, instead of the Internet radically reprogramming one’s brain in adverse measures, it makes people to be more intelligent and smarter. Research indicates that use of Internet and allied technology devices such as smart phones encourages multitasking that leads to a cascade of events that frees and improves memory. Many studies over the last decades have unravelled the impacts of Internet on cognitive structures and behaviours. In relation to information processing, the use of the Internet and smart devices has been blamed on the shifting trend to shallow learning and poor memory consolidation (Loh & Kanai 506). Perhaps this trend is attributed to the increased content in hypertext world, which reduces the cognitive resources required for deep processing. Internet users will therefore make a quick scan of text with minimal contemplation and consolidation. However, as Loh and Kanai (506) argue, such cognitive loading effect is due to improving the hypertext environment navigation or strengthening adaptive learning habits. Another factor that makes people to have shallow learning is the increased ease of accessing information online, which reduces the importance of deep processing to commit the information to available memory (Coila np). Therefore, the reliance on technology as a secondary source of memory leads to reduced commitment of learning. This is because information is available on demand and can be retrieved later. While critics argue that such habits are maladaptive, people can strategically free up their memories for different operations that they deem to be important. However, while interruption deep learning skills development may influence brain circuitry that is critical for these skills and result in some form of neural changes, more research needs to be done to unravel the exact mechanisms that interferes with online information processing. Study findings that link the effects of media multitasking on task-switching and multitasking performance have been inconsistent. This inconsistency calls for more research to establish the casual relationship between executive control and media multi-tasking because most of the present findings are largely based on cross-sectional research studies. At present, there is a limited number of neuroimaging studies investigating the effect of online distractibility and multitasking. In a related study, researchers have found that drivers tend to have a reduction in brain activity during media distraction events such as changing the radio station or an album in a CD player. While this disrupts their primary task, which is driving, similar studies on the impact of the Internet have not been reported. In another recent study, researchers found that smaller ACC volumes result in increased media multitasking (Loh & Kanai 506). However, based on the correlational nature of the study, experimental and longitudinal approaches are necessary to determine the differences between brain structure and media multitasking. According to Loh and Kanai (506), it is interesting to note that action video games do improve attention abilities among players. Such improvements have been shown to be functional and structural changes to the frontoparietal attention network. This observation indicates that individuals exposed to different types of multitasking end up with different effects of cognitive functions. Another interesting area that has not been researched is the reward system involved in Internet addiction. The immediate rewards that Internet users derive even when they are in miseries following the death of a loved one has poorly been investigated. Research needs to extend such findings in ...