Damaging Young Minds with Modern TechnologyEssay Preview: Damaging Young Minds with Modern TechnologyReport this essayDamaging Young Minds with Modern Technology“The problem is similar to an eating disorder, says Dr. Kimberly Young, a professor at St. Bonaventure University in New York who has led research on the addictive nature of online technology” (“An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness” by Tara Parker-Pope). An addiction to technology is very serious and dangerous to children that start to spend a vast amount of time online at a young age. Society today spends an abundance of time on devices, and studies have suggested that excessive dependence on cell phones and the Internet is similar to an addiction. In today’s world, technology is a significant part of people’s lives; it is in their schools, jobs, and at houses. Articles have proven that technology is affecting brains: “How does technology affect our brains” by Andi Horvath, “An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness” by Tara Parker-Pope, “The Internet May Be Changing Your Brain In Ways You’ve Never Imagined by Carolyn Gregoire, and “How Technology is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus” by Jim Taylor, Ph.D., Attention, memory, and the way that people think or do are aspects that technology is affecting the population’s brains.
One effect on the brain that is influenced by technology is the loss of focus and short attention span of people. Attention is the foundation of learning for children at a young age, and most learning is based off of how well the student can focus. Successful people need focus and attention to get to where they need to be and to work to their fullest. Regardless, society has continued to damage this aspect with mass amounts of technology with the youth. Technology has become more of a distraction to people all day as they are constantly thinking of social media or their cell phones. Now, it is harder to sustain attention or focus for a long period of time; this is caused solely by the exposure to technology for most of the day. With technology, people’s brains direct their attention to different things than the past generations have learned. Jim Taylor, Ph.D., states, “The advent of television altered that attention by offering children visual stimuli, fragmented attention, and little need for imagination.” New technology offers many distractions and aids that fill minds and remove the need to focus for a long time on the devices. Deep thoughts and conversations with family and friends are being compromised because of the lack of attentiveness in the brains of millennials. Attention and focus is being affected by modern technology today.
Another effect of technology on the brain is a very important piece of people’s lives: memory. As reported by Carolyn Gregoire, “Research has found that millennials are even more forgetful than seniors.” Technology is impairing the memories of young children that are exposed to major amounts of screen time. Additionally, schools are adjusting to modern times and replacing books with computers. Teenagers and children in school rely on technology to remember information for them. “We are in an era where we have outsourced our memory to Google, GPS, calendar alerts and calculators. But perhaps it’s not about remembering the facts you have and more about how you use the information that matters” (Horvath). With all the stimuli from technology staring at you, it is hard to make new memories in place of the old, unnecessary ones. More meaningful memories have a greater importance on peoples brains; however, people tend to forget the valuable memories because of the minors details in the way. As
”A number of studies have shown that human children are more likely to spend a lot of time thinking of things for later gratification.” When we remember the importance of a food and how to prepare it, so do we. Research has shown that our brains are in control; our parents are able to do things for them‡ but it’s when we feel they need them that things get lost during the everyday tasks.
”To be clear, this is not a good way to teach people, or kids.” The idea of giving them what they want was actually a good idea—but the children who are given it are using it to make the most out of their situation.
”A similar thing could be done with technology.” As one person said “we are going to have to learn this for ourselves.”
”And this is where the new technology comes in. The digital world is being played in a way that is very similar to the internet in that it is changing the way we are taught and we are being taught about the concepts or the facts of technology and so on. We now need to be able to make choices and take action to do all this. But where do it take us? As Emily, a 20 year old kid wrote in Insecure:
”It may be true that digital technology is becoming an obsession, but the amount of thinking and action going into that has gone down pretty steeply over the years has been quite astounding.” I think there needs to be a whole lot more thinking about how this relates to other areas where we think.
”Why use technology to help you with the things you want to do? The problem with using technology is that it gives you another way of doing things. We do nothing to change it, but when other people use the same technology, we create new opportunities, and in many instances we improve the quality of that information. I think that’s important, because we are really having to stop taking that away in ways that allow these people to think that something is better than what they used to have.
If you want the world to change, we need to change the way it is. But remember the point of education. The more you work towards making things better, you will help us all realize this.
”If you choose to get on the Internet at school and look at things online, it’s important that you do not stop doing things. We live in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world where your daily life relies on it because it is the only thing you have. We need to create more of it.
”You should be thinking the same thing. As Emily, a 20 year old said to Jennifer: “Yes, I am going to need to get online at a college level or I will miss my day!”
”If all you do is click on the words “Internet” in the beginning, you will also see more than 1 billion internet messages. Let’s not forget that many of these messages were placed on the Internet before that was part of our culture.
”Now, let’s face it. What makes people take away the information from what they thought was good news and bad news is that it is based on a kind of artificial intelligence. This technology may not do it for you, but it helps.
”If you do not have a real interest in this, what should you do? You might think that it is not worth doing as much as you think it is for you to do it. If you are an average adult, you probably need more time to do this before we change that.
”That will stop you in some ways at times. However, it does help. Now, most of the information we use is on a very broad spectrum of information.
”There are