Is internet making us stupid?

Hi everyone. 
Do you think internet is making us stupid?
I am writing this article to share with you what I think about this question. 
Share with me what do you think. :)




As a computer science student, I’m always interested in new technologies. Ever since the internet was born, our lives have been changing rapidly. 

I find I'm really lucky to have lived in both periods when there was neither Google nor Facebook and when they have become a part of my life. I strongly feel differences between these two lives. So I'd like to talk about how internet is changing our lives and are there any other changes?

As a big fan of Google, I use almost all the Google products .

Thanks to Google Search, I no longer need to spend my whole day in the library finding  answers to questions. 

Thanks to Google Maps, I no longer need to memorize the way to the nice restaurant which I tested last week.

And thanks to Google Calendar, I no longer worry about missing the big events of the month, Google can remind me two days before with all the details.

Everything becomes so easy and so convenient. 

But “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” We always pay for what we get. What are we paying? What’s the price?

I notice that the way I read has changed. I used to be patient in reading, but now I have more difficulties concentrating on a deep read. Especially when I read a long article, I tend to scan it by reading only the highlighted phrases and I easily miss information.  There are some restaurants where I have been more than three times , but I am not able to find them without my cell phone, because every time it was google which guided me there.

Moreover, I can’t imagine how my life would be badly organized if Google Calendar stopped popping up messages.

 (I can’t imagine what a mess my life would be without google agenda.)

So,  I’m wondering:

When Google is making my life easy, is it also making me stupid?

When Google is changing how I live, is it also changing how I think?

I did a quick search on Google, some studies confirmed what I thought. 

There was an interesting experiment from University of London, researchers analyzed a large number of taxi drivers’ brains and non-taxi drivers’ brains. They found that the hippocampus of taxi drivers was  larger. 

Later, McGill University did another study, they scanned the brains of adults who were GPS and non-GPS users. Their result was that non-GPS users had a greater volume of grey matter in the hippocampus than GPS users. 

The hippocampus is a part of our brain, which is involved in memory and in navigation processes. Due to its functions, we can find the way to our workplace, to home and to other places where we've been. It is one of the first areas of the brain to be affected by Alzheimer's disease, which results in memory loss and difficulties in spatial orientation.

Our brain is like a muscle, if we don’t exercise it, it becomes weaker and weaker it can lose some capacities. 

When we are using GPS or other tools to help us, we are using them to replace the work of our brain. The more we use them, the more we will be dependent on them, because we are losing our own capacities.

Earlier I mentioned that I find myself having more and more difficulties concentrating on a deep read. is it also because of internet? There's no research about this question, but I think it can be related. 

As our brain is plastic, it can be formed by the way we use it.

today when I type a word in Google, the most related information will be put in bold. I don't have to read a huge paragraphe to get what I want. That's extremely efficient. Even traditional medias have begun to use this efficient way. For example, newspaper, magasins have begun to use big titles and highlight important phrases in articles. Television shows have begun to pop up messages, leading us to think in the way they want us to. 

I am getting used to reading in this way, my brain is used to being informed in this way. When I read a long article where there is no highlight, nor easy information which jumps directly into my eyes, I find it tiring and that's why I can't keep concentrated.  

Internet is changing my life, but it's also changing how I think.

Internet is offering me a lot of conveniences, but the price I pay could be some  of my brain capacities!

  

What a horrible remark. What is  more horrible is that today I can't live without internet, I can't stop this change of our society.

fortunately, what I can change is myself. Adapting ourselevs to survive is always the law of nature. Since remote antiquity, the environnement change has  always been faster than the evolution  of our body, our brain. human being survived till today,this is because we know how to adapt to different situations. 

today, internet is everywhere, it has becomea part of our life condition . we can't completely reject  it, but we can use it better so that we can  benefit more and suffer less.