Project 3 Draft - Generation DotNet

            The Internet has become the communication and information medium of choice. As a result, many American students are less and less able to read and analyze, or to write with purpose and clarity. They have been subject to the “morbid symptoms” of the change to a proto-electronic society where the Internet is capable of conditioning sense and sensibilities (Birkerts). The Net has become our medium of choice for storing, processing, and sharing information and as author Nicholas Carr describes, “a new intellectual ethic is taking hold. The pathways in our brains are once again being rerouted” (Carr 77). The Internet is reweaving our social and cultural web and in turn, it has negatively affected the intellectual capabilities of many Internet users across the country in particular, Generation Y, or Generation DotNet.

            Among the world’s most influential minds, renowned scientists, authors, and literary critics have discussed the potential impact of the Internet on intelligence. In The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts fears that our educational systems are in decline, as many students are less able to read and comprehend texts and test scores are falling at an alarming rate. Thus, he describes language erosion, the flattening of historical perspectives, and the waning of the private self as issues related to the use of technology. Language erosion results from fewer students reading books while historical perspective is “flattened” due to students viewing the past with only one perspective and as irrelevant to the future. Also, the connectedness of the Net contributes to the “electronic collectivization” which Birkerts believes has fueled the loss of the individuated self among young people, the loss of autonomy (Birkerts). Similarly, Howard Gardner, a psychologist at Harvard University thinks that the lives and minds of young people are fragmented as the plethora of connections, networks, and messages results in less stable identities in which “times for reflection, introspection, solitude are scarce” (Brockman 276). In addition to Birkerts and Gardner, Haim Harari, an Israeli theoretical physicist, believes that the Internet has made three significant changes to peoples’ thoughts. First, messages have become terse due to social networking, texting and e-mail. Second, the role of factual knowledge in the thinking process has diminished. The importance of factual knowledge has decreased because the Internet enables users to access facts quickly through sites such as Wikipedia and Google. Third, Harari thinks that the Internet has altered the process of teaching and learning. The use of technology in the classrooms “may create an entirely different pattern of knowledge, understanding, and thinking in the student” (Brockman 239). As human reliance on technology and the Internet increases, it has been hypothesized that there is a negative effect on human intelligence. The hypothesis is supported by thorough research completed by Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation, and data released from national surveys.

            In The Dumbest Generation, Bauerlein discusses the effect of the digital age on Generation Y, specifically on young Americans who are uninterested and actively cut off from world realities. As many students spend countless hours on the Web, their level of intelligence is not increasing because “the web is a consumer habitat, not an educational one” (Bauerlein 149). Many young Americans lack knowledge in history, civics, math/science/technology, and fine arts. There is zero benefit to spending hours on Facebook or other social networking sites, as these sites have no knowledge aims at all. In 2004, the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the percentage of seventeen-year-olds who “never or hardly ever” read for enjoyment had more than doubled from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004 (Department of Education, United States). The more a person doesn’t read, the more a person can’t read and the intellectual development of the young mind will stall. Also, research has supported that children who grow up in homes with many books receive three years more schooling than children from bookless homes. This study, in which parents’ education occupation, and socioeconomic class were held constant, suggests that the presence of books in homes has significant educational benefits (Kelley et al.). In addition, the Chronicle of Higher Education released data from a 2006 survey of college professors, which found that only 6 percent of the professors surveyed believed that entering students were “very well prepared in writing” (Chronicle of Higher Education). It is evident that the changes in technology have led to new patterns of thinking, especially in reading and writing among young people. 

            Why do students choose not to read? Why are students’ writing skills inadequate? The Internet has likely contributed to the creation of these flaws. When writing a paper, students frequently turn immediately to the Internet to check for existing information instead of pursuing new thoughts through imagination. Thus, the Net satisfies immediate needs at the expense of deeper thinking and understanding. Also, the creation of Microsoft Word and spell-check prevent the improvement of a student’s writing skills. A blog post on the USA Today blog, “Generation Next,” said that young people today suffer from “e-literacy,” as “we can’t spell and we don’t know synonyms because there’s less need to know. What smart person would devote hours to learning words that can be accessed at the click of a button? Spell-check can spell. Shift +F7 produces synonyms” (Bauerlein 66). Thus, people's writing and thinking skills are deteriorating as their reliance on spell-check and the Internet grows exponentially. In addition to studies related to reading and writing, the theories of well-known critics and authors as well as scientific research studies have proven that the Internet has affected the neurological pathways of the human brain.

            The Internet has affected humanity, as neurological studies have provided evidence that it can restructure neural pathways, affecting cognition. Even though the long-term neurological and psychological experiments about how Internet use affects cognition are currently being conducted, published research suggests that the Net is changing the way we read and think. In a recently published study of online research habits, as part of a five-year research program experimenters examined computer logs. The logs documented the behavior of the site visitors on two websites that provided access to e-books, journal articles, and other written information. The results indicated that the visitors skimmed frequently, switched from one source to another and generally read no more than one or two pages of a source before switching to another site. The researchers concluded that these Internet users are not reading online in the traditional sense, instead they “‘power browse.’” (Carr). Unfortunately, when people read online, they become “‘mere decoders of information,’ our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged” (Carr). Due to the brain elasticity of humans, the Internet’s instant availability and overload of information has the potential to reprogram people at a biological level.

              In 2007 Gary Small, a UCLA professor of psychiatry conducted a study with 24 volunteers. Half the participants used the Internet daily while the other half had little experience with the technology. The participants performed Internet searches while undergoing fMRI scans which recorded changes in brain activity. After the initial scan, the participants spent one hour a day for seven days over a two-week period on the Internet. Then, the participants received a second scan and the fMRI results indicated activation in new brain regions for the inexperienced participants, regions related to working memory and decision-making. After a brief period of time the inexperienced participants had rewired their brains, as they demonstrated activation patterns similar to those who used the Internet daily (Champeau). This study shows how quickly and extensively the Net is able to restructure people’s neural pathways. Small concluded “the current explosion of digital technology is not only changing the way we live and communicate, but is rapidly and profoundly altering our brains” (Small). However, as the Internet leads to extensive brain activity, humans may be subject to cognitive overload. The psychological term cognitive load refers to the information flowing into our working memory. If the information load exceeds the brain’s ability to process and store it, the information will not be retained or be connected to other memories. Extensive brain activity may lead to cognitive overload, which prevents humans from converting new information into conceptual knowledge (Carr). In 2005, psychologists at Carelton University found that “the increased demands of decision-making and visual processing in the hypertext impaired reading performance…many features of the hypertext resulted in increased cognitive load” (DeStefano & LeFevre). In addition to cognitive overload, science reveals the actual effects that Internet use is having on the way many of our minds work.

            In contrast to the research studies that have indicated the Internet negatively influences human cognition, technophiles such as Ray Kurzweil and Nicholas Negroponte believe that the Internet is enhancing not degrading human intelligence. A research study at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies found that Internet use helps humans to develop “fluid intelligence – the ability to find meaning in confusion and solve new problems, independent of acquired knowledge” (Anderson). This research study supports that the Internet and its resources can shift cognitive capacities. Humans won’t have to remember as much information, but will have to improve critical thinking and analytical skills, as less time will be spent memorizing information. In addition, Ray Kurzweil, an American author, inventor, and futurist believes that machines will attain human-level intelligence and humans will become transhumanists, incorporating more technology to become more intelligent. Similarly, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT’s Media Lab and the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC) supports the use of technology. Negroponte wrote the bestselling book Being Digital and he is a digital optimist who believes that the Internet will improve human life. One of OLPC’s projects was to provide computers to children in developing countries, as Negroponte believes that computers are “a window into the world and a tool with which to think (Trafton). They are a wonderful way for all children to ‘learn learning’ through independent interaction and exploration” (Trafton). As is evident, there are arguments in favor of technology and Internet use, as it has the potential to improve human intelligence. However, the results of many research studies support that the Internet is negatively affecting human cognition.

            Many studies by psychologists, neurobiologists, educators, and Web designers about the effects of the Internet on how humans think all point to the same conclusion: “when we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning” (Carr 115). The Internet can serve as an interruption system, as it scatters human attention. As people use the Net, they will often glance at their email inbox to check for new messages or stop reading an article in order to check Facebook. These breaks in a person’s concentration will burden their working memory, influencing cognition. In 2009, Patricia Greenfield, a developmental psychologist reviewed over 40 studies of the effects of different types of media on intelligence and learning ability. The studies supported that media weakens human ability for critical understanding and underpins “mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination, and reflection” (Greenfield). Similarly, Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd of Duke’s Stanford School of Public Policy recently examined computer use among a half-million 5th through 8th grade students in North Carolina. They found that the use of home computers and Internet access were correlated to considerable declines in math and reading scores. The online world, which as Cory Doctorow describes as an “ecosystem of interruption technologies,” has contributed to student’s lower test stores (Vigdor, Ladd). Even though the Internet allows its users instant access to immense amounts of information, it is turning us into shallow, easily distracted thinkers. 

             The Internet has negatively influenced the attention-span and the ability to foster ideas among many of its users. As Nicholas Carr describes, “what we’re experiencing is, in a metaphorical sense, a reversal of the early trajectory of civilization: we are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest” (Carr 135). As humans navigate the Web, every time they shift their attention, their brain has to reorient itself, which strains mental resources. In particular, the Google search engine serves as a distraction to Internet users. It will continue to encourage users to click as often as possible, as it gains hold of our intellectual lives. “Hyperlinks are designed to grab our attention. Their value as navigational tools is inextricable from the distraction they cause” (Carr 90). It is impossible to be attentive and learn when a person is distracted from distraction by distraction as they click from site to site. As a result, the Net’s abundance of stimuli undermines human thought, which prevents the ability to think with creativity and attentiveness. In addition, many people visit too many websites and receive too many messages while feeling overwhelmed by everything that is occurring online. Many users lack the ability to manage their time properly in the face of this plethora of information. Thus, this makes people constantly unfocused, distracted and less able to complete intellectually demanding tasks.

            “As revolutionary as it may be, the Net is best understood as the latest in a long series of tools that have helped mold the human mind” (Carr 115). Unfortunately, the Internet has not necessarily molded the human mind in a positive respect. Among Generation Y, the evidence cited in this paper confirms that for most young Internet users, “the Web hasn’t made them better readers and writers, sharper interpreters and more discerning critics, more knowledgeable citizens and tasteful consumers” (Bauerlein 110); instead, the Internet may be the greatest enemy to deep thinking since the invention of the television. The United States needs the Millennials to become intelligent men and women who aspire to be strong and wise political and military leaders, journalists, teachers, judges, scholars, critics, and artists. The future resides in Generation Y or Generation DotNet and it is imperative to prevent the influence of the “morbid symptoms” of the Internet in this proto-electronic era.          

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