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Technology's Effects on the Mind

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Submitted By jrich9328
Words 1717
Pages 7
Jennifer Richards Burgess
English II
8 October 2015
Technology: Helping or Hindering the Human Mind?
I'm at a constant battle with the modern day technology. I often feel like I was born in the wrong era, as an overwhelming amount of new technology is constantly being introduced. We are in an age where we have any answer to any question at our fingertips, we are all connected through social media, and we live in a 'selfie' culture. However, is all of this technology good for us and moving us forward, or is it making us regress as a species? The question made me curious, so I dove into research.
The first step in my research was the most obvious, I typed in 'Does technology decrease intelligence?' into Google. The first article that popped up was from Medical Daily' and after looking at the sources and the page, I decided it was a pretty credible read. The article makes many good points, an interesting one being that technology literally affects us physically. Through studies done, they found technology lowered our levels of gray matter. Working out where to go ourselves creates mental maps and creates more stimuli in the brain, though we give that up when using GPS. That same concept also applies to learning-instead of learning on our own anymore, we look up answers online. It's been proven that when we self teach and find our answers through work we create more brain stimuli, and we retain the information better. Contemporary technology has weakened our capacity for deep processing, which can be gained by reading extended texts, though we are able to filter and read only what we think necessary online. Technology has given us the ability to find an answer in seconds, but not retain the knowledge. It has also decreased our attention spans thanks
Richards 1 to all of the distractions of the internet and games, and has physically hurt us because we now move much

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