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Is technology harmful to mental health essay
Psychological effect of technology
Psychological effect of technology
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Technological advancement has come with a price—our focus. Maggie Jackson in her article “A Nation Distracted” explains that technology has promoted a culture of distraction in America. First, the author explains that technology is causing us to engage in more multitasking, which leads to more time spent on completing our tasks. Second, the author notes that studies show that youth and children are adept at using technology, but are deficient in their critical thinking skills, and properly investigating and using the internet. I feel that the author makes an important point when discusses technology is leading to widespread distraction in our society. However I feel that mindfulness might be a way to address this issue because allows us When I come home from a tiring day at work, I lie down to rest, but soon after my iPad and iPhone both start ringing to alert me of emails, text messages, phone application updates, and others responding to my social media statuses. So, I take nearly an hour to respond to read and respond to my emails and text messages. Next, I log into my social media accounts (i.e. Twitter and Facebook) and check my notifications, respond to these notifications, and usually someone sends me a message via Facebook, and a long conversation commences. Afterwards, I might spend an hour playing a game called Bubble Witch Saga on my iPhone, thinking that I have to keep playing to achieve level 700—I am only on level 112. By the time I escape all these distractions, I noticed that I haven’t called my girlfriend and I haven’t eaten dinner or completed any house chores. My example confirms the author’s point about how many people are unfocused and distracted as a result of technological distractions. Despite the constant distraction and sad state of our focus, I feel that one important way of addressing this issue is practicing mindfulness. This means that we focus exclusively on one task, including all the minor details – avoiding any outside distractions. I learned in my reading and writing class that people who practice mindfulness can increase their ability to focus, and even reduce their stress. Therefore, I feel that people can start embracing a mindful mindset
As human beings, it is becoming more of a second nature to us to multi-task. As the world is technologically advancing more and more every day, there are becoming more distractions. Social-media is flourishing, reality TV show ratings are going up, and humans even unintentionally check their phones every two minutes. In this day of age, multi-tasking is proving to promote inefficiency rather than productivity.
In the chapter “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era,” from The New Brain, written by Richard Restak, Restak makes some very good points on his view of multitasking and modern technology. He argues that multitasking is very inefficient and that our modern technology is making our minds weaker. Multitasking and modern technology is causing people to care too much what other people think of them, to not be able to focus on one topic, and to not be able to think for themselves.
In the article,“Multitasking is actually kind of a problem for kids and adults” by Hayley Tsukayama the author went into detail about how parents and their children view their personal media habits. One of the ways that the parents and children viewed their media habits as was feeling the need to respond to texts and notifications immediately. “More than 1,200 parents and teens surveyed, 48 percent of parents and 72 percent of teens said they felt the need to respond to texts and notifications immediately, almost guaranteeing distractions throughout the day” (Tsukayama). This article can be connected to “The Epidemic of Media Multitasking While Learning” both of the articles discussed the different factors of media multitasking among individuals. The article from The Washington Post website gave great insight on multitasking and rather it is bad for students when it comes to learning. I believe that the issue being discussed is very relevant because if students are easily distracted by technology while in their learning environment it results in them not learning
Technology and our exposure to it are changing our lives; of this there is no doubt. The issue regarding what form that change will take and the effects of it on our physical and emotional health, however, are more contentious, and experts’ opinions on it run the gamut. In “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of our Era”, neurologist Dr. Richard Restak examines what effect technology has on our brains, and posits that technology, as well as the increasing demand on our brains to perform multiple tasks at once, is causing a decrease
In Hermann Maurer’s, “Does the Internet Make Us Stupid?” he shows that Michael Merzenich, a neuroscientist and professor at the University of California in San Francisco is “profoundly worried about the cognitive consequences of the constant distraction and interruptions the Net bombards us with. The long term effect on the quality of our intellectual lives could be ‘deadly’”(Maurer 49). If an expert in the brain field is worried, then others should also be more cautious about the devices they use. Mark Becker suggests that “media multitasking may be uniquely associated with deficits in basic cognitive processes such as the ability to successfully filter out irrelevant information and ignore distraction” (Becker 132). People do not give one task their full attention, they are always multitasking such as doing homework while texting and listening to music. People think multitasking will help them complete tasks quicker; however, in the long run they are changing the functions of their brain and even damaging it. According to Nicholas Carr in his novel “The Shallows”:
Body #1: Digital technology and social media are damaging our daily routine. In the article “The risk and rewards of being an adolescent in the digital age” by Madeline J. George and Candice L Odgers they say, “4 out of 5 adolescent mobile phone owners report sleeping with there phones in or near their bed.” This statistic really proves to us that these phones are really damaging our daily routine because we are so addicted to our phones we can’t stop being around them. Digital technology and social media are starting to slowly take over our lives and are now becoming additional distractions to our daily lives because we are so focused on them and not the things that are going on around us. Lev Grossman also talks about this in his article, when he states that he is also putting in too much time into his phone also. The reason he says this is because his phone is set to update his emails once every sixty seconds so he won’t miss out
Electronics can cause us to be distracted, and the results of these distractions cause many problems toward our lives. The author of “Is Google Making us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr, acknowledges the fact that we can’t do any deep thinking with the distractions that technology provides. He explains, “Deep thinking, scientists have discovered, happens only when our minds are calm and attentive.” On technology our minds aren’t calm and attentive. Therefore, we can’t do deep thinking. The author also addresses the fact that when we are distracted, we don’t understand as much, we learn less, and we remember less things. The text “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price, “ by Matt Richtel offers another reason we should shut down our screens, and
In the article, “Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um…Focus,” Alina Tugend centralizes around the negative effects of multitasking. She shows that often with multitasking, people tend to lose focus, lack work quality, have an increase in stress, and in the end she gives a solution to all these problems. Tugend conveys her points by using understandable language, a clear division of subjects, and many reliable sources, making her article cogent.
Although cell phones have opened our world to more opportunities to communicate and ensure safety, humans have abused the use of cell phones by not limiting their time spent looking at FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc. The key to the puzzle is moderation: balancing one’s cellular world with real life. The next time friends want to hang out, they should be encouraged to set their phones aside and enjoy the world around them, and not the one in their
One problem that results from cellular technology is distraction. Cellphones, which have evolved to smartphones no longer, are ...
Even though technology’s purpose in the world was to create an easier means of life, we happen to lose track of time because of the ample uses that technology has. As we venture into a digital world so vast and immensely informative we tend to search for things deemed important such as the things our favorite celebrities are doing, whom your friends crush is or googling why people have test anxiety. The internet for example is capable of bringing forth billions of topics in a matter of seconds. With the implementation of ads and the ability to open multiple tabs and windows, we generally become abstracted and tend to click many links that serves our interest in which we then forget our main purpose for using the internet. Technology can be a time consumer put into place when you are doing something uninteresting therefore causing people to do multiply things, for example doing homework online while being on Facebook can cause a person to take longer with homework instead of finishing in a timely manner. “Commit to a single task on your computer or mobile device, the same way you might commit to an important face-to-face conversation. You can find freedom from distraction on-screen as well as off” (Samuel e-page 32). Samuel states that if people were to treat tasks as if it was an important conversation that
I'll automatically stop what I'm doing to reach directly for my phone to see who it is and what they have to say. I am spending more time than I should be on the phone. I've caught myself scrolling through Facebook checking on my friend's newborn baby or watching Snapchat stories to see what kind of shenanigans my friends are getting into today. Then before I know it I've just wasted thirty minutes to an hour of time.
Google defines distraction three ways, but before I could read through them all, the google image of the 2016 Doodle Fruit Games caught my attention, and I had to click on it. Distractions are everywhere. From phones to computers to televisions and the Internet, disturbances make up daily life. The real question is not how to avoid these disturbances as they surround our life. Rather, the question is: Can these distractions be defined as hysteria and madness, as interruptions and hindrances, or as amusement and entertainment?
He observes that his mind has been changing with the use of the internet and that computers are diminishing his capacity for concentration and contemplation (Carr 315). He effectively expresses his feelings that longer attention spans are being replaced by more instant-gratification demanding mindsets. It’s with these newfound mindsets that Carr expresses concern that the human psyche is becoming little more than robotic algorithms incapable of reflection, deep critical thinking, problem solving, or imagination (Carr 327). Furthermore, Carr’s concern with how technology affects our ability to think has been echoed in research specific to
A beautiful commercial, “Disconnect to Connect”, which was made by Thailand DTAC Company, shows that there are many people always focusing on their cell phones. The commercial shows a man ignoring his girlfriend who is walking with him on the beach, another man neglecting his friends who are playing piano, and a father overlooking his children who are playing around. Then, they smile and find the happiness of life after they turn off their digital devices. These things happen constantly around us every day. Nowadays, the functions of digital devices are stronger, and our eyes and fingers contribute more time on it. There is no doubt that the digital devices make our life more convenient and easier because people can connect with each other immediately. Nonetheless, people should not spend too much time on digital devices for three main reasons: having less face-to-face communication, depriving people’s brains of needed downtime, and negatively influencing people’s health.