The Internet is Making Its Users Dumber
Introduction
The internet has been one of the most remarkable inventions of man in history. The internet has revolutionized people’s lives as well as their communities in ways they could not imagine. Through the use of the internet, life has been made easy, and almost everything is accessible through the click of a button. Communication has been significantly improved and brought the world to people’s palms. The education system has incorporated the use of the internet as part of the learning curriculum as a way to help students learn better and improve their learning. As such, during pandemics like the current COVID-19 pandemic being experienced in the world, online classes have provided a way for students to attend their classes while maintaining the government’s directives of isolation, social distancing, and quarantine as a strategy to control the spread of the respiratory virus. Using the internet has become a norm for many people and, thus, raised their dependence on the internet to complete various life tasks. Nonetheless, questions have been raised as to whether the internet is making people dumber. The use of the internet has been noted to make a person intellectually lazy, impairs their ability to become critical thinkers, and having a negative impact on learners’ ability to become attentive in class. An argument could also be made for the internet making people smarter through visual learning and learning new skills.
Arguments For
Over-reliance on the internet to look up a solution to a problem that makes people lazy intellectually. Internet platforms such as Google and YouTube that allow users to look up various things on the internet make people lazy to think for themselves. This impairs their ability to answer questions on their feet without looking up the answer on the internet. Being constantly on the internet especially social media makes one lazy to gain intellectual skills that are acquired through reading a book, and this affects the ability of a person grasp and gain knowledge from reading physical books or pieces of literary works since they are used to shorten messages which do not follow the rule of language. The author of an article in The Atlantic remarks that “my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do” (Carr). The internet allows users to look up different information online simultaneously, and this affects a person’s ability to pay attention to what they are reading. This, in turn, affects how people are able to acquire new knowledge and skills since they cannot think for themselves but wait for answers from some random people on the internet. Also, reading books help to challenge the mind, and being online does engage the mind, thus making people dumber. Thus, making their brain is not challenged enough to process information faster as well as understand different concepts faster.
Furthermore, the constant use of the internet affects a student’s academic capabilities and acquiring knowledge and skills. The use of the internet affects the academic excellence of students. For starters, it affects their concentration span while the educator is teaching, the student may be using their phone to play online games or converse with their friends online which robs them the capability to pay attention in class. Maurer alludes, “We are so inundated by the information that our attention span has become very small” (3). In addition to this, students become unable to manage their time better since they are online for the better part of the day. This affects their sleeping and rest patterns, which consequently affects their academic performance since they are constantly fatigued to learn new concepts and skills in class.
Moreover, the internet allows people to read through various information simultaneously, making the brain multitask in grasping new knowledge and skills. However, the brain is unable to hold this information since multitasking hinders the brain’s ability to interpret the information in depth. Multitasking only increases a person’s visual skills and not their ability to analyze the concept deeply. This affects their ability to come up with ways to solve problems they are facing. They are unable to use the information at their disposal to solve the issues they face. Therefore, not only does the use of the internet affect the academic capabilities of students but also their ability to become critical thinkers.
Arguments Against
Although the internet could be argued that it makes people dumber, the internet helps people become smart. For starters, the internet has improved people’s ability to interpret information through visual means. People are able to hold and grasp longer visual information than reading the information written down. For example, many people find watching a documentary on the dangers of drug abuse to be more impactful on their understanding of the seriousness of the challenge than reading it in textbooks. People have been able to remember visual information they watched a long time ago than a book they read, and this can be best explained through the use of movies that have been adapted from books. The best example of this is that people who saw the Harry Potter films remember the story better than those who read the books while they were young. An article by Forbes states that “Whatever you may think of Lost, or 24, or Homeland, the fact remains that these are long-form stories and require the viewer to be able to keep track of plot lines and characters,” (Morgan). This has improved the people’s ability to hold large amounts of information as well as recalling important details of the information. In addition to this, educators use projectors to teach their students through visual images that are detailed with the subject they are teaching. The students are able to recall the details of the information they saw on a presentation than reading it from a book.
Another way the internet makes people smart is through learning new skills and knowledge on internet platforms such as YouTube through videos and blogs. These platforms allow people to look up ways they can learn skills ranging from simple skills such as cooking to complex ones like computer programming. Although the internet has been noted to impact people to become dumber by making them intellectually lazy, the internet could also make people smart through its ability to showcase different skills and how to perform them. Aj Agrawal states that people are able to acquire new knowledge through the internet since “they have a library of information at their disposal” (2017). As such, the internet is filled with tutorials that teach people new skills and concepts step by step. A professional excelling in the area of study shares the expertise he has learned over the years to people through tutorial videos or blogs on different websites. By following the blogs or video tutorials, a person is able to learn and develop new skills. For example, a person could learn how to change a flat tire, a skill they did not know how to perform, and have to seek the help of mechanics to change their tires. Students ate able to have access to various information that is impactful in their quest to achieve academic excellence. Conducting academic research is easier since journals, books, and research data can be found on the internet. Therefore, the internet allows people to learn new skills and knowledge that help them become smarter.
Conclusion
Indeed, I believe the internet is making its users dumber because it makes them intellectually lazy, unable to become critical thinkers as well as inattentive to grasp concepts and ideas in class. The internet has become popular in this century, and many people have made it a norm to use it in daily activities. The internet helps people become smart through visual learning, whereby a person is able to retain more information from watching a presentation rather than reading a book. Also, through the gaining of new skills by watching videos and reading blogs. The use of the internet has become more popular in the twenty-first century, and people have become overdependent on the internet to perform simple tasks in life. This has made them intellectually lazy since they are unable to challenge their brains to new ideologies concepts and theories. Through the internet, people are unable to read long paragraphs or read a long book because it has not been simplified or broken down into fewer sentences or uses fewer words like on social media posts, and this impairs their ability to challenge their brains to process information faster. This also affects their ability to become critical thinkers because they can look up answers on the internet rather than have a brainstorming session and come up with the solution to a problem. Also, using the internet in class affects their ability to be attentive and concentrate in class, and thus, internet users who are students are unable to perform well in school.