Essay on Long Live the Web

The advent of the internet has made work easier for the human race in a lot of ways; the main reason the internet has bettered human life is that it is an information highway. This information highway provides answers to the many questions people have. At first, the internet was only used by the United States Military, and later on, questions and answers were fed into the internet by people working for search engine companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing among others. But today, anyone can post information on the internet. There are positive mental consequences of human online information crunching because a lot of our cognitive skills are strengthened by the use of computers and the internet.

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What the internet has done unto the modern human brain is that it has forged it into a system that transcends the mind to incorporate all aspects of the external surroundings. For instance, a number of technological tools like navigation by means of the slide rule, computer modeling, and long division by means of pencil and paper; have the potential of diversifying the way we think, act, and move about (Berners-Lee, 55). With the internet at our disposition, we get to know that the human brain is very plastic: synapses and neurons alternate as circumstances change; it helps us to be able to adapt to brand new media, and cultural phenomena and men end up with a brand new brain. The continued use of the web makes all our online habits to go on reverberating in the workings of the human brain cells even when the individuals in question are not sitting on a computer. The web has made man to fully exercise his neural circuits that are concerned with multitasking and skimming.

The more human beings make use of the World Wide Web or the internet, the more it lights up their brain. One proof of the above statement is research conducted in the year 2007 by a UCLA professor by the name of Garry Small. Garry conducted a test on experienced surfers and another on inexperienced surfers; he required of them to Google a number of preselected topics while he monitored the activity of their brains. In the course of the study, Garry monitored the activity of their brains and noted that experienced surfers portrayed more activity in their brain as opposed to novice users, more so in the brain sections characteristically committed to the solving of problems and the making of decisions. After to his, he brought them to help him do the same study six days later; this time having the inexperienced surfers spend 60 minutes every single day surfing the internet in the period prior to coming back. In the second phase of this experiment, the brains of the inexperienced internet users looked a lot more than the experienced internet users. It is amazing how one hour a day for five days a week caused all that transformation. The entirety of this experiment by Gary Small is proof enough that over time, the use of the internet changes the neural pathways of the human brain in a positive way (Deresiewicz, 32).

Long live the web because it has made our brains to consistently look out for incoming information. What the internet does is that it makes our brain to be more curious. Another experiment that resonates to that of Gary small conducted at Stanford University showed that people who multitask, like heavy users of the internet, many a time tend to ignore pass, valuable sets of data, instead of making a choice to look out for brand new information. Many scientists over time have made an observation that a considerable number of human beings who get a thought that something interest may be unraveling is like catnip and they cannot overlook it. Because the internet is constantly making the human brain look out for new information, human beings have grown to be more curious and are time and again distracted by new mail (Carr, 83).

The Internet has been beneficial to the human race because it has redefined education in schools in all facets of life. With the advent of the internet and the online libraries, it has predisposed us to; rote memorization is no longer an important part of learning and education. Educators and myriad other instructors have started to comprehend that information are at the moment at the predisposition of everyone by means of a fire hose, faster and quicker than can be digested within a single day. The internet has shown us that the memorization of facts is a waste of valuable brain power that could be utilized to keep up with the times on more relevant information that cannot be Googled quickly. People can further look out for the manner in which technology and the Internet therein positively impacts the way learners get educated by means of traditional or online masters degrees in education.

It has been found that the Internet is beneficial when used by older adults in that it helps boost their brain function. A study conducted in the year 2008 suggested that the utilization of Internet search engines has the capacity to stimulate the patterns of neural activation and possibly enhance brain function in older adults. Such information regarding the benefits of the internet is very encouraging, a testament that modern day computer technologies may have positive physiological effects and potent benefits for older and middle-aged adults. All the above-mentioned information was seconded by Garry Small in a study that he conducted in the year 2008; in one of his written statements, this professor of human behavior posited that searching the internet engages complex activity in the brains of human beings, that mat bring about tremendous improvement in the functions of the brain. For all human beings, old or young, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging brain scans depict the manner in which searching the internet considerably engages all the neural networks of the brain.

Whats more, the internet has made all its users better when it comes to finding information. In as much as we cannot recall it all, we as human beings are getting better at searching out for the information that we are looking for. The brainpower that we as human beings used in the past to store information and facts is at the moment used by us to learn by heart how to look it up. As myriad studies like the one carried out by Gary Small proved that human beings recall less information through being aware of where the information can be sourced. This is not necessarily something that is bad and is definitely amazing because the World Wide Web helps us to adopt better at new technology and highly skilled in remembering where to find things (Hauser, 23).

It is also worth mentioning that the World Wide Web has helped us to increase our IQ at a faster pace. In the age of Video games and MTV, experts and parents are becoming more aware that the flashy and new technologies are helping us to develop our brains constantly. In essence, MTV, video games, Twitter, Facebook, and Google have made us smarter. In essence, what a ten-year-old of today knows is not what a ten-year-old of the past knows. The usage of the internet makes children and adults alike to know what is happening in their immediate environment. An environmental awareness translates to more neural activity in the brains of modern-day human beings.

In a nutshell, what the World Wide Web has done for man constitutes more good than harm. Information remains literally at the fingertips of people; with this information, all tasks, be it business, social connection, finding places, politics, and marketing among other things, have been made easier. At large, man stands to benefit a great deal from the web.

Works Cited

Berners-Lee, Tim. "Long live the web." Scientific American 303.6 (2010): 80-85.

Carr, N. "The web shatters focus, rewires brains. Wired." (2010).

Deresiewicz, William. "Faux friendship." The Chronicle of Higher Education 6 (2009).

Hauser, M. "E. CABELL HANKINSON GATHMAN."