Every morning, a friend of mine named Abigail wakes up to her blaring alarm before school; however, before she gets out of bed, she checks her Instagram feed. During school, Abigail responds to her Snapchat from her friends in class, making sure to hide her phone behind her book so that her teacher will not see. When she gets home from school, she gets lost in the maze of social media for hours before she even begins her bucketload of homework. Finally, before going to bed and getting the sleep she desperately needs, Abigail texts all her friends about something she saw on Twitter before she can fight the urge to put her destructive phone away. Technology has drained hours of peoples lives, both kids and adults, which could be used for much more proactive activities, such as work, exercise, or sleep. Although technology has exceedingly enhanced the development of our society, technology has also greatly diminished individuals’ brain function and use.
The diffusion of technology globally has had a negative effect on the development of the parietal lobe of the brain, the part of the brain that is responsible for attention. In the article How Digital Media Impacts the Brain, written by Sara Briggs, Briggs argues that the rising use of digital media results in multi-tasking, which technology makes so easy because you can open many tabs or use multiple devices at once; consequently, the rise of multi-tasking results in a poorer quality of learning. Briggs references a study by Russ Puldrack, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, who has concluded that learning new information while multitasking sends this new information to the striatum, responsible for procedures and skills, rather than the hippocampus, responsible for facts and ideas. This results in the information being stored in a “shallower way,” preventing future “quick retrieval” of the information. Because technology moves at a very quick pace and has many distracting interruptions, such as advertisements, it has become much harder for people to maintain a longer attention span; therefore, the ability to deeply think and concentrate on one thing is diminished because of our shortened attention spans.
In fact, many experts have concluded that our attention span has now been reduced from 12 seconds in 2002 to 8 seconds in 2013, meaning that our attention spans have dropped 4 seconds in only 11 years; it is actually below the 9 second attention span of the infamously ill-focused goldfish. The significantly lowered attention spans and the rise of multitasking worldwide are both directly caused by the growing influence of the media.
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The advancement of technology has also had a negative impact on mental health. The rise of technology is paralleled in the rise of mental health conditions and diseases, including depression and anxiety; in addition, the symptoms that adolescents with pre-existing conditions, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), have worsened due to the rising use of smartphones and tablets. As teenagers have become addicted to the Internet and have gotten further isolated from the real and natural world, there has been an unprecedented rise in depression, which is characterized by a persistently unhappy mood or loss of interest in activities.
The addiction to smartphones is like an addiction to chocolate. Chocolate is enjoyable and sweet, yet it is fattening, unhealthy, and sickening; similarly, technology is entertaining and captivating, but technology is also hazardous and destructive to the human brain. Additionally, there is a wide variety of apps that can be downloaded on iPhones or Androids, including games, social media, news apps, weather apps, dating sites, and many more. This variety of activities on the smartphones always keeps the user distracted. Because we are conditioned to always check our phones when we are bored and have nothing to do, we have lost the ability to sit quietly with only our thoughts to entertain us. To some people, technology is oxygen, for they simply cannot live without it; the absence of technology causes the inability to think or function. The healthier the world is, the better off society is, yet the rise of technology is leading to a very unhealthy world.
In contrast, there are many arguments that claim that technology is beneficial to society because it improves the overall quality of life. The Internet also offers information on almost every topic imaginable; however, there is a misconception that everything on the Internet is factually correct. There are many trustworthy sites that are written by professionals who are experts on the subject, yet they are often covered up by the enormous amount of unreliable sources. For instance, the site Yahoo seems amazing because it answers a ton of questions on practically every subject for curious readers, yet it is actually very undependable, particularly because anybody can answer the questions, not just professionals and experts.
Additionally, technology is seen as a way to become healthier and more physically active, for iPhones can even measure your calorie intake, physical activity, and sleep levels. While these technologies do, in fact, tremendously help some people, the majority of people don’t use technology this way. Instead of going on a jog or lifting weights, the lion’s share of people will use technology to watch television or play games. Some aspects of technology can be extremely helpful, yet people don’t use technology in these ways. The overuse of technology is actually proven to be unhealthy and these impacts cannot be overlooked.
Generations growing up today see technology as a necessary and fundamental part of life, yet they are oblivious to the detrimental effects it has on our health. Although technology is, in fact, valuable because of its capabilities and variety of uses, yet those uses can turn out to be destructive and hazardous. The generations today need to recognize the damage they are doing to their brain while they spend hours on their phone aimlessly.
