This is The era of the internet, where the answers to our deepest questions lay just at the tip of our fingers, where the click of a button contacts somebody across the world, and where food can be ordered without touching a thing. It is easy to see why this quite recent adaptation has evolved into something most people now can’t even imagine living without. However, it is to be understood that these amazing benefits come hand and hand with serious consequences. As stated in Nicholas Carr's essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Humans have a “plastic brain” and the internet has started to mold our brains to its format. What this means for us is shorter attention spans, a failing memory, and decreased observational activity. This increased use …show more content…
However the question has to be posed, how many of these articles do people actually read? As Nicholas Carr answers, not very many. His citation from the University College London exhibited the “skimming activity” most people manifested when they used the internet; “Hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they'd already visited”(pg 5). While many critics may argue that this data does not imply that people did not fully understand what they read, the reality is that this behavior illustrates the lack of contemplation most people exude. Jumping from one source to another as quickly as was found in the research done by the University College London simply does not leave enough time for people to absorb any information from the text. The real problem appears with the transition to a piece of text from the internet to a printed one in a book. Books are not made to be skimmed like the articles on the internet but to be studied carefully. Now, many people are struggling to get through the deep reading that a book requires because their brain is so adapted to quickly skimming the articles on the internet. Speaking from personal experience I have found this unfortunate adaptation to be true. Once an avid reader I now struggle to fully comprehend the meaning of each book that I read, habitually opting for skimming sparknotes instead of reading the written word. I find that my mind tires and drifts soon after I start to read, causing me then rush through the book, leaving me just a few main points if nothing else. My brain does not seem up to par with its past measures and the correlation with my frequent internet use and my adapted reading skills seem to be connected. The “skimming activity” that has been adapted for our frequent internet use has depleted our capacity