The Internet and the Brain: Effects on concentration

Being online does change your brain, but so does making a cup of tea. A better question to ask is what parts of the brain are regular internet users using. Web addicts have brain changes similar to those hooked on drugs or alcohol, preliminary research suggests.

How does the internet really affect us? Is it just sayings or does our own technologies make us addicts?

Figure 1 - Here you see a man who is unplugged from the real world, while some are enjoying the real world.

There are favorable and unfavorable factors. In the first video, we are told some favorable and unfavorable factors, such as how easy it is to communicate with our friends, acquaintances and family members or get to know other people. But we also see how it affects us when we are on a date or out with friends. Our mobile devices are unplugging us from the real world, when we get a message or a phone call. We prefer to look at our phones and get information or look at cute cat pictures, instead of having a conversation with the person right beside us. One of the guys from YouTube talks about how our mind is getting a signal when someone doesn’t reply to our text, how we feel if he/she doesn’t reply us then it is almost like the person just turns around and walks away. Nick Bilton the technology writer, talks about how companies distract us with a little vibration when we get a message and how it all is user interface that makes us want to look at the notifications we get from our phone. He uses an expression, when he talks about how we get a message and we feel that we must answer the text, that it would be like if I wanted a conversation with you and just ‘zapped’ you with a taser and pulled a stop sign in front of your face. Nick also says that we need to reduce those disturbances on mobile devices.