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Loading...5 Ways Electronic Gadgets Are Ruining Your Brain
As a teacher and a freelance writer, I love my iPad and my computer. But lately I’ve been reading about some alarming effects of the use of all our gadgets. Here are just 5 that have troubled me recently:
* Excessive Internet Use Is Linked To Depression
British psychologists have found evidence of a link between excessive internet use and depression. According to The Guardian, the article on the relationship between excessive internet use and depression, a questionnaire-based study of 1,319 young people and adults, used data compiled from respondents to links placed on UK-based social networking sites.
* Too Much GPS Usage Can Lead To Brain Atrophy
For example, taxi drivers learn to rely on their GPS devices and stop thinking about their internal maps. You may degrade your spatial abilities when not training them, as with someone who learned a musical instrument and stopped playing. And another example: several search and rescue operations had to be mounted in the Sierra Mountains of California last year, when hikers with a GPS didn’t even bother to navigate or use a map, but left it all up to the GPS. Bad idea!
* Social Websites Are Harming Children’s Brains
Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centered. The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favorite websites each day.
* ‘Educational’ Activities May Actually Slow Learning
The medical journal Pediatrics reports children who watch fast-paced cartoons perform worse when asked to follow rules or delay gratification. Some technology developed to enhance cognitive abilities of infants or adults may slow learning. Ironically, research found that educational or ‘brain boosting’ applications may actually slow learning while ‘mindless’ video games can have sustained benefits.
* Students Are Losing The Ability To Concentrate
The average ninth grader student in my classes receives at least 1,000 text messages per month. (And that’s not during the school day, since I force my students to turn in their cell phones.) A lot of us teachers are seriously concerned that the input of multiple technologies is leading to the inability to stick with any one thought for longer than a few seconds. Creativity and imagination are also lost in this constant use of technology.
Our beautiful new gadgets are not going away but, as I always mention when discussing my book Get Out, the important issue here is balance. I too love my iPad and my computer, but I also need to get away from them sometimes, find myself, go take a walk in nature.
Let’s hear it for a balanced life!
What do you think? What is the place of electronic gadgets in your life?
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Read more: brain develoment, computers, electronic gadgets, internet, ipad, iphone, social media, technology
Photo Credit: Soppy Chen
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Very interesting thanks!
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+ add your ownThe subject is rather argumentative, but I'm surprised by the gap between those who have voted 'No' and 'Yes' in the quiz. I mean I've been sure that superiprity is on those who consider over-reliance on technology wrong. And now I'm quite puzzled.
Electronic gadgets cause problems with concentration and depression because if wireless, the harmful electromagnetic radiation they emit causes biological changes which affect health. Heavy users of cell phones have an increased risk of brain cancer, especially if beginning use at a young age. Parents, teachers, please educate young children not to use cell phones!!
when i read the header i thought it might talk about dangers of microwave radiation that many gadgets emit etc but no LOL they talking about facebook and bebo how ridiculous!!
"Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centered..." hahaha how about paying more attention to BPA - plastic toxins that is in virtually EVERYTHING, Chemical Junk food that supermarkets are selling and parents are feeding their children, what about TV huh...? And GMO's, all kinds of toxic experimental vaccines you guys are forcing on the kids to name few???! get a life!
Thanks.
Shalvah, i've had the rare, for me, opportunity to see and take some sunset photographs along the coast south of San Francisco last year. I've made one of them my background on my work computer. Every so often, someone asks about it and where did i get the photo. I've had enjoyed that sunset hundreds of times. I couldn't have done so without filming it first.
I have used computers since the Commodore 64 era, and I have found technology in all it's ways to be an improvement on my life.
Better technology has allowed MORE freedom of expression, has made learning certain things easier, and has generally made my lie better in everyday.
This "technology is ruining society" nonsense largely comes from people too stupid/ignorant/lazy to learn how to use it properly.
These same Luddite hypocrites probably complain about modern technology on their blog via their I-Phones with wireless internet without realizing the irony, or how FAIL their stance is.
Students ARE responsible for their own mastery/effort, and thus directly responsible for the grades they get. I find it strange that when a student does well we congratulate the student, but when they do bad we blame their failure on anything/anyone but them. Maybe the student is a stupid/ignorant/lazy piece of crap predestined to work at McDonalds for the rest of their life. Ever think of that?
Even when I was in public school there were kids that were stupid on purpose, and you know what? We called them stupid because they were stupid, and they deserved low grades, because they were stupid constantly by not doing their homework, not paying attention in class, and not studying. Stupid kids like that do not deserve to be rewarded with an easy A. They deserve to get the FAIL they worked for because they are stupid.
A test has to be constructed such that some people pass while others fail, and thus measures individual mastery/effort. A test that is at the end of one of the extreme ends (everyone passes/fails) does not test anything, and cannot be relied upon as a measure of mastery/individual effort.
Example: If a flying license test was too difficult then no one would pass, and we would have no one to fly our planes. If a flying license test was too easy, then everyone would pass including those who should never be allowed to fly. Which of those two extremes makes you more comfortable to get on a passenger plane?
The answer is neither. The first one would result in having no pilots, and the second one would result in plane crash deaths.
This is why a test has to be set up in such a way that some can pass while others fail.
With “no child left behind” they are adopting the fallacy that if you continue to lower expectations until everyone gets an “A” that mastery/individual effort has been measured. As I have demonstrated, this is not true. If everyone gets an “A” you cannot make the assumption that anyone has learned anything because you have no score distribution to make that assumption from.
Teachers are NOT responsible for individual mastery/effort, but are responsible for creating valid tests. Valid tests will have some students pass, some students not pass, and a distribution between the two extremes.
Students ARE responsible for thei
If your kid is stupid it's far more likely because he/she is stupid rather than they "play to much on the Internets."
Stop blaming everything else for how dumb your kids are.
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