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Rewiring of the Brain in the Internet Age
In our newest series we will focus on how the Internet has impacted the human brain. After reviewing the pros and cons of how Internet usage impacts our cognitive skills, we’ll explore some pro-active brain training strategies we can all take to help channel our command and control system to excel in this hyper-stimulating technology environment.
As far back as 1965, Marshall McLuhan, the celebrated Canadian communications theorist had prophetically forecasted the advent of the internet age. With its presence, we have since witnessed the collapse of time and space, along with the emergence of new patterns of human perception and consciousness. The digital age has not only changed the physiology of the human body, it has, as McLuhan foretold it, also enabled all forms of media to become extensions of our central nervous systems. Dan Wegener, a former Harvard University psychologist, had even contended in an article published in Scientific American that the Internet had become the external hard drive for our memories.
What we’ve all come to know, living in this bold new digital world of total field and sensory awareness, directly impacts our attention spans, memory, focus, and sleeping patterns. It has also given rise to the burgeoning field of neuroplasticity, which focuses on understanding the brain’s ability to change its form and function in response to external stimuli, such as the plethora of interactive and internet technologies we all face on a daily basis.
So while some earlier studies from cognition experts have championed the effects of Internet technology on the brain, such as research from UCLA, where findings demonstrated that Web search activity may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function, other neuroscientists, such as Susan Greenfield of Oxford University fear the internet has seriously compromised our memory functions, attention spans, personal communication skills and our ability to think abstractly.
Greenfield sees the human brain as being under threat from modern technologies and that unless we wake up to the damage that the pharmaceutically-enhanced 21st century is doing to our brains, we could be sleepwalking towards an ominous future that blurs the line between living and non-living machines, and between our internal and external experiences.
No doubt, the impact of modern technologies will remain a passionately contested forum on both sides of the brain debate spectrum.
In the upcoming ‘blogs we will focus on some of the incredible changes our brains have experienced in this new digital age millennia.
Cons of Internet usage on memory, attention & focus- Pros of Internet usage on memory, attention & focus
- Steps to optimize our brain performance
- Summary of Internet usage on the brain
We look forward to seeing you next week. Until then, keep your attention and focus sharp!
DynamicBrain Inc. is the Canadian Partner of Posit Science Corporation providing brain fitness program, BrainHQ in English and French.
