INTERNET TAKING OVER YOUNG MINDS How much time do we have left before technology completely takes over our mind? Or has it already? We are told it is changing our brains, our thinking, and our learning. Few people are as concerned as Nicholas G. Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to Our Brains, of how badly the internet is affecting us mentally. The book being a recent finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize Awards. In one of Carr’s articles, written for The Atlantic Magazine, “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains”, speaking from a personal experience he says, “My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. ” Having been victimized by the internet, Carr continues, “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.

Naythin Hindi, who’s grown up with the internet for most of his life, tells us how he has been affected by it. “The internet can be a harmful product to most students in school. I say this because I am a victim of this theory. I believe that most people in school do not do well in tests and in homework because they are too busy updating their ‘Facebook statuses’. Social networks and other sites do affect students focus on school work. For me, I have gone through this harm done by the internet but have to yet overcome it. While being a senior in high school, he has to find time to balance his school work, sports, and a girlfriend. But apart from all of these, not only does Naythin, but most of the internet users of today have to surpass the effects it is causing them. “Reading articles do seem to get very tiresome and useless when the internet is available. One thinks, ‘Why waste time reading the whole story when the internet can provide all that we need quickly. ’ This can be a positive or a negative to a person’s way of thought. “Reading articles do seem to get very tiresome and useless when the internet is available. One thinks, ‘Why waste time reading the whole story when the internet can provide all that we need quickly. ’ This can be a positive or a negative to a person’s way of thought. ” His girlfriend, Maria, says that she can see how the internet is affecting people around her, especially Naythin. “Yes, some people can’t do anything without some type of technology. That’s sad because we are becoming dumber by the day. We’re relying on technology too much. Today technology is becoming an addiction to many people. “Once I receive something on my Blackberry, I usually check it right away depending on if I am busy or not” says Naythin. We’ve come across the border line where it was okay to use the internet for a while. Now, it’s becoming a necessity to many. The internet has affected the amount of reading people did in the early ages. Today, people just skim through the pages. Even when people go online to try and find information, they can’t stand too many words.

When they come across a long article, some try to identify key words to find what they’re looking for quickly; others will exit the page and search for shorter answers. In 1997, Jakob Nielsen did a study on reading online and how it is affecting today’s youth. In this study, he found that people took in hundreds of pages in a pattern that’s very different from what you learned in school, “It looks like a capital letter F. At the top, users read all the way across, but as they proceed their descent quickens and horizontal sight contracts, with a slowdown around the middle of the page.

Near the bottom, eyes move almost vertically, the lower-right corner of the page largely ignored. It happens quickly, too. ‘F for fast’” Nielsen states. Today, many people think the internet is the key for everything. When someone is in doubt, now a days, you come across hearing the term ‘Google it’ as if Google had the answer for everything. The internet is something people have learned to love, but it’s not a sane love. Technology has become an addiction to many. Society does not know how to live without technology anymore. People have stopped thinking for them and have let the internet take over their minds.