
How the Internet Changes Our Thoughts and Behaviors for the Worse (2011) - Phithagoras
http://www.theemotionmachine.com/the-dark-sides-of-our-digital-self
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api
It's more mobile phones than the Internet. I'm expecting a backlash.

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Ntrails
> _79% of online readers scan, rather than read word-for-word. Often readers
> can’t be bothered to dig into text in order to find a piece of information
> or an answer to a problem._

Well didn't that make me feel like a shit as I scan read the article...

(Although in all seriousness I do reserve the right to be mildly interested in
the overview of an article and not care about the details. I don't feel that
is a flaw.)

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dasboth
I agree, there's too much noise out there anyway. With most articles you don't
lose much by only quickly scanning it.

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ro_sharp
An interesting book on this topic: [https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-
Internet-Doing-Brains/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-
Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750)

A review: Carr—author of The Big Switch (2007) and the much-discussed Atlantic
Monthly story “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”—is an astute critic of the
information technology revolution. Here he looks to neurological science to
gauge the organic impact of computers, citing fascinating experiments that
contrast the neural pathways built by reading books versus those forged by
surfing the hypnotic Internet, where portals lead us on from one text, image,
or video to another while we’re being bombarded by messages, alerts, and
feeds. This glimmering realm of interruption and distraction impedes the sort
of comprehension and retention “deep reading” engenders, Carr explains. And
not only are we reconfiguring our brains, we are also forging a “new
intellectual ethic,” an arresting observation Carr expands on while discussing
Google’s gargantuan book digitization project.

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kiba
It's only a problem if you're actually bombarded with alerts and linkbait and
refused to read anything smaller than one thousand words long.

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Aelinsaar
People adapt to their environment, and if their environment is dominated by
shallow, fleeting interactions, it's hard to imagine that it doesn't have at
least a temporary effect. The thing is, I don't see it being the dominant
force in the life of healthy people. Young or old, your majority of social
interactions won't be online, and you're going to be more shaped by
consequential interactions.

Friends and family are just going to exert more pressure on who you are, and
how you behave, than distant people you don't really know.

For a healthy person. For someone who is very isolated for one reason or
another, then it can probably get very strange and unpleasant. That strikes me
more as another symptom of whatever isolates, rather than an underlying cause
though.

~~~
Swizec
Have you ever seen a family eat dinner with the TV turned on? There's no
conversation. Fleeting phrases here and there. Everyone watches TV.

It's the same when everyone's smartphone is on the table. Perhaps worse
because you aren't even sharing the experience of watching the same TV.

All my friends are always inside my phone. Only some of them are in front of
me. Guess who wins.

~~~
Aelinsaar
That's just a glimpse of their lives, not most of it.

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Hnrobert42
It seems Dr. Aboujaoude has a pretty low opinion of people's ability to choose
for themselves what they want. The gripes about incorrect capitalization seem
particularly petty. There seems to be little consideration given to the
fulfillment people get from exploring alternate versions of their personality.
Basically, it seems like he doesn't like the internet and then sets about
justifying his position.

~~~
throwanem
He doesn't seem to like much technology that's newer than television, from all
I can see. Too, the direct link is to an outright puff piece. I'm really
surprised this has survived on the front page as long as it has, or gotten so
near the top.

~~~
ehnto
The explanation for the latter is probably that people identify with the
subject and want to discuss it anyway.

I am sure many jumped straight to the comments, as I did. I just want to hear
what this community thinks about the topic.

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rrecuero
It seems to me that the internet is turning us a bit into bumper cars.
Everything just happens. We get a new tweet, then we open the phone, we
retweet. A minute later, another notification from whatsapp comes in... From
notification, to reward to action, we get stuck in that social loop.

We need to develop a more intentional relationship with our environment,
friend and specially with ourselves.

~~~
ehnto
That is exactly the mentality that allowed me to scrape back my concentration
and productivity.

If I am to open my phone it has to be with intent. I need to be achieving
something.

The idle twiddling of thumbs waiting for something to react to is what becomes
a bad habbit, and drives the need to constantly check your phone even though
nothing is happening on it.

~~~
ehnto
That probably sounds really dry, but the real benefit of ditching the phone
habit was to gain back the ability to fully engage in games, movies,
conversation, and even playing instruments. I was finding the short lived
reward cycle was invading everything I did,to the point where I couldn't even
sit down and learn a 2 minute song.

~~~
rrecuero
Couldn't agree more. It's like we are constantly driven by these little shocks
that makes us forget the only reality, the present moment. As you say, taking
the phone off and escaping from it allows us to become a bit more grounded and
fully engage in the present moment. Hopefully those stretches of time get
longer, but it is a lifetime journey

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tmaly
I was just talking about this broad subject last night.

It feels as if the interaction of people with the internet especially through
phones is causing a ADHD of sorts.

It is affecting peoples ability to interact with one another. I try daily to
strike up a conversation with people I encounter. Years ago, you could have a
really great conversation. These days it seems increasingly difficult to find
anyone interest in having a discussion about anything.

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pavedwalden
Where I perceive a tendency to ADHD is in myself. I used to enjoy long in-
depth journalism, now after a few paragraphs I get the urge to open another
tab. I used to enjoy long plodding movies by Kubrick and Malick, now when I
watch a 60 minute television drama I keep pausing it playing with my phone.

It's like my mean-time-till-context-switch has gotten shorter out of habit.

~~~
Falkon1313
I feel similar - being used to the distraction of switching between multiple
tabs while waiting for a page to load, while a video plays on the second
monitor, scanning the feeds on my phone on breaks. I can't focus to read a
book and a movie takes days to watch. But it's not the internet.

I used the internet for years without any attention-span decrease or
distraction features. When it was gopher, telnet, IRC, email, and BBSes etc.
running on a DOS PC with no multitasking. (OK, I cheated, I had a TSR that let
me switch between up to 3 programs, but RAM was limited and you were only
using one at a time.)

It's the combination of multitasking OSes, putting a lot more things on the
screen(s), and ubiquitous pocket supercomputers. That's led us to a new
standard way of living where we're always trying to do several things at once
and expecting context switches every few seconds. That makes it hard to do
anything deeply and fully, or focus on anything for a lengthy time; it feels
unnatural.

