Technology is harming the human brain?

02 February 2019 9 1K Report

Seek your observations please.

Arvind Singh Popular answer

Brains of excessive INTERNET users constantly plugged in and crave the use of the web shows similarities to alcohol and drug addicts. Similarly excessive use of social media can cause information overload leading to memory loss. Please take a look at the following PDF attachment.

Chris Oliver

Technology is changing our brains as well as our lives. If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you’re staring into a screen. Our inability to look away from our tablets, smartphones and social networking platforms is changing the way we process information and perceive the world. In one Gallup Panel survey, 52 percent of smartphone owners reported checking their mobile devices a few times an hour or more. Data confirms that young people are even more wired: More than seven in 10 young smartphone users check their device a few times an hour or more often, and 22 percent admit to looking at it every few minutes.

The digital age is transforming our behaviour when we limit our communication to 140 characters and use emojis to express our emotions. When we’re bored, we simply reach for our gadgets.

Five ways that modern technology is impacting our brains and our lives.

We have decreased attention spans: It takes a much shorter time for us to grow bored and move onto the next thing. "Ten years ago, before the iPad and iPhone were mainstream, the average person had an attention span of about 12 seconds, research now suggests that there's been a drop from 12 to eight seconds ... shorter than the attention of the average goldfish, which is nine seconds."

We are more easily distracted: A Microsoft Corp. study surveyed 2,000 participants and studied the brain activity of 112 others using electroencephalograms (EEGs) while they performed several activities across devices. It found that “heavy multi-screeners find it difficult to filter out irrelevant stimuli — they’re more easily distracted by multiple streams of media.” In other words, it’s hard to complete a necessary task when our phone signals in incoming message.

We can more easily multitask: The Microsoft report says our ability to multitask has drastically improved in the mobile age. While that may sound like good news, Psychology Today reminds us that, “multitasking, as most people understand it, is a myth that has been promulgated by the ‘technological-industrial complex’ to make overly scheduled and stressed-out people feel productive and efficient.” That’s because performing various activities involving the same type of brain processing isn’t possible; you can’t talk on the phone, read e-mail, send an instant message, and watch YouTube videos all at the same time and still retain information.

We have grown addicted to digital technology: Admit it; you’ve been tempted to stop working and check your Facebook feed to see how many “likes” you’ve received on your latest post. Similar to chemical dependence, technology and its built-in gratification are hard to resist. We simply can’t stop ourselves from compulsively checking our texts and scrolling down our social media feeds. “The technology is designed to hook us that way. Email is bottomless. Social media platforms are endless. Twitter? The feed never really ends. You could sit there 24 hours a day and you’ll never get to the end. And so you come back for more and more,” Alter told the New York Times. “We are engineered in such a way that as long as an experience hits the right buttons, our brains will release the neurotransmitter dopamine. We’ll get a flood of dopamine that makes us feel wonderful in the short term, though in the long term you build a tolerance and want more.”

Our ability to socially interact in person is impaired: It’s a common sight to see two people eating together at a restaurant, but instead of talking to each other they are staring down at their cellphones. The consequences may be worse for children growing up in the digital age. In his book, Alter spells out research that shows kids who spend a lot of time staring at screens rather than engaging with others suffer from an inability to empathise and read social cues. “When kids are asked to detect people's emotions — happy, sad, angry, surprised — based on nonverbal cues, those who spend a lot of time on tech struggle to decipher one emotion from another at a much higher rate than kids who spend more time interacting in the real world,” Alter said in an interview. "One of the things that happens with our brains is we get used to whatever is the most rapid thing we're experiencing."

https://www.samuelmerritt.edu/news/2017/5-ways-technology-altering-our-brains

Arvind Singh

Fatima Faiq

As for technology there are many benefits but at the same time have harmful effects on human health, especially the brain because of the vibrations and radiation that cause tumors "cancerous

Maurice Ekpenyong

Yes! Technology is harming our brains. As an undergraduate student in University of Nigeria, my MTH 111 professor could solve complex mixtures of Division, Multiplication, Addition and Subtraction problems than any of us students using the calculator. That was when I started fearing that something was wrong. Now, my students cannot even think properly. They get distracted too easily, cognitive learning is almost completely absent. Preference is given to gadgets and surprisingly, most unwary parents encourage it. Emissions from vibrations of cellular phones and the direct effect on brain cells have earlier been reported. Technology is making users slow thinkers besides exposure to diseases.

Fatima Faiq

There is scientific research confirming the effects of technology and its impact on the human mind with the evidence and the results of a scientific study, done by McGill University, and found that drivers using GPS maps, instead of relying on their ability to identify trends, And gray matter activity in the brain area responsible for supporting and strengthening memory. A 2011 study, published in the journal Journal of Science, confirmed that people have problems remembering when they know the information can be referenced in the device, but according to the study, the problem extends to the great knowledge of life. The site explained that the lack of information gathering in the mind and linking and analysis, makes it unable to analyze and develop the culture, and the ability to realize thought and mental advancement. "The brain, with technology, has a problem distinguishing between real and fake information," he said. A study at Stanford University found that students were finding problems distinguishing between news articles and advertising articles, even if they were explicitly written as advertisements. While another study of the same university revealed that a smartphone and technology trader finds it difficult to distinguish between what is important and what is not important. It quickly facilitates distraction and deception.

Afraa Ibrahim

Technology has great benefits but also disadvantages and it depends on how we use technology

Suparna Roy

Technology is mandatory requirement for society, but people misuse it. People apply this technology in various field in wrong manner.

Krishan Kaushik

No, Not at all. Its our unconsciousness that is making us a victim. We are Human i.e. having a strong analytical brain - though it is unfortunate that we are NOT trained in that way, Lastly - IT IS ALWAYS A CHOICE / DECISION that make us who we are/ how we are.

> P.S. - If addiction is making us tech-slave THEN only one line for us.

" None but ourselves can free our minds."

Bob Marley

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