Internet and Human’s Internal Knowledge

The internet is a worldwide system that is connected together with computer network suite to link devices all over the world. In the world today, the internet has become a major source of information where people go there to get information about a whole lot of things. As a global network of networks, the Internet has become one of the essential information and communication mediums which can make important contributions to individuals’ quality of life; and college students are not an exception in this regard (Tekinarslan, Erkan, 2017). With technology developing rapidly across the world, more and more people are connected to the internet thus increasing the possibility of a large amount of persons going to the internet in pursuit of information or gain knowledge about the world. Nonetheless, a huge question about the cognition effects of people going to the internet s. Does searching the internet for information really increases people’s internal knowledge?

The internet itself is a powerful environment that anyone can enter a question and get the results from different parts of the world almost immediately. It has become more and easier for a person to confuse his or her own knowledge with the knowledge acquired from the internet (Fisher, Goddu, & Keil, 2015). We didn’t see that people were more confident that they could find answers if they had access to search. We saw that people were more confident that they knew the answers—had the information in their heads—if they had access to search. It’s more like thinking you know how to fix a car if you have access to a mechanic (Berinato, Scott, 2015).It is very difficult for people to be accurate about what they truly know or how much they know or rely on the internet when they are alone. But there is no doubt that people rely on the internet more than they think. People feel more confident about their knowledge when they are using the internet.

To find out whether searching the internet for information increases an individual’s internal knowledge, researchers used two groups of individuals and studied them. In one condition, one group was allowed to access the internet for information after which they were asked different questions that did not relate to the information that they searched in the internet (Fisher, Goddu, & Keil, 2015). In another condition, a different group of people was asked not to go to the internet in search of information and afterward asked the same questions that the first group (those who were allowed to access the internet for information) were asked. In another experiment, the same procedure was conducted, and the two groups of people were examined after the experiment (Ward, 2013).

According to the results, a large number of the people who searched for information in the internet believed that they were more knowledgeable about the questions than the group of people that were denied searching the internet for information (Fisher, Goddu, & Keil, 2015). Most of the participant that were studied in the research had an increased sense of their internal knowledge after searching for information in the internet even when the information that they were searching for in the internet was not available. These individuals also believe that their brains were more active than the group that was deprived off the internet. This group of individuals managed to report an increased sense of internal knowledge after successfully using the internet to search for information whereby, they posted a high rate of correct answers to the questions asked as compared to the opposite group (Ward, 2013).

In regard to the results of the experiment, it is clear that the internet inflates people’s internal knowledge. When people search the internet for information about the world, a thought is created whereby they believe accessing the internet for information increases their internal understanding of things.

 In real life situation, the internet has also shown a negative impact on human ability to think, reason or even concentrate hence impacting the general human internal knowledge. Students in particular, have been affected by the overdependence of the internet, which only acts to destroy their thinking reasoning and concentrating capabilities, this section looks at how different groups of people have been affected by both the internet and its components such as the social media, and the effects which they have on human beings.     

The use of the internet has a lot of negative impacts on our human thinking capacity, as it affects the general functioning of the brain. The internet acts as the main human storage device, in the sense that we tend to rely more on the internet, rather than on our own brains (Carr, 2011). This consequently makes the internet the centre of our thinking capacity, because each and everything that we do is based on what is happening on the internet. Human thinking capacity has been damaged, through overusing the internet, which tends to think for us, thus making our thinking capacities impaired (Brockman, 2011). While dealing with serious issues, we are supposed to think critically, in order to come up with solutions to such issues. However, this is not the case, since the modern technology has made it easier for us to be able to gain information which will be necessary for use to focus and also deal with the challenges which we are currently experiencing.

Overreliance of the internet is also another factor which impairs our thinking capacities. For instance, 86% of primary school children in developed countries use the internet for learning (Initiative, 2013). This is a good thing, as it enables each and every aspect in the world to evolve technologically. Nevertheless, it impacts the memories of these children, simply because they are not supposed to remember whatever they have learnt, because all the information learnt can be easily accessed through the internet, making it easier for them to read through. The way a young mind of the young children should be trained to memorize and remember each and everything which it does is now being given to the internet (Carr, 2011). This makes such children’s’ minds to be reliant on the internet, a factor which impairs the way children think, how they synthesize information and how they are also able to reason due to the way their mind is being treated as a component of the internet. When the mind of a young child is treated as a component of the internet, it makes it difficult for such a brain to develop into a mind which can be able to store huge amounts of data.   

The internet acts as the trend setter, whereby most people the youths in particular depend fully on the dictates of the internet. Social media sites which can be accessed through the internet, tend to impact the youths, thus making them to forget about the dictates of the society, and instead focus on social media dictates. Over 3.2 billion youths all over the world have access to the internet, which makes them to easily access social media sites (Brockman, 2011). The social media has consequently gained popularity all over the years, due to its dominance in the market. Similarly, most business have ended up making the use of the social media as advertisement and marketing tools, due to the huge number of followers which social media sites have. The majority of people using the social media are the youths, who cannot be able to do anything prior to accessing the social media. Their reasoning capacities have altered, due to the way different people portray themselves on the social media. For example, most youths have ended being addicted to the social media, whereby they cannot be able to reason or even do anything without taking a photo and positing wherever they are or whatever they are doing (Carr, 2011). The number of likes received when one shares a photo on the social media tends to make them either feel appreciated or not. If someone uploads a photo and fails to gain a certain number of likes, then it becomes an issue which can affect the life of the person. This basically means that the minds of innocent youths have been reduced into nothing, whereby they rely on the social media for appreciation and likes, and if they do not get it, then it becomes an issue.

On the other hand, concentration in class, work, and at home has also reduced. Students, workers, and also housewives cannot be able to concentrate on their tasks, due to internet addiction (Brockman, 2011). Due to this addiction, it becomes hard for them to be able to concentrate, since most of the time people tend to think about the issues which are happening on the internet, a factor which has led to poor concentration among students in class, poor concentration at work and also at home. Parents at home cannot undertake their tasks, due to poor concentration, which makes it hard for them to be able to undertake their tasks effectively and ion the right way. The reasoning capacity of human beings has therefore been weakened, thus making them to rely on the internet in each and everything they do (Carr, 2011).

The impact which the internet has on human social life has also changed, since the human mind concentrates more on the internet, thus forgetting about social lives. It has consequently become hard for human beings to rely solely on each other, since they find the internet friendlier as opposed to other people. It seems the internet has blinded the human mind, thus impacting the reasoning of most people since they cannot be able to rely on other people for help, but instead believe and trust the internet for any forms of assistance. For example, most people tend to search on the internet for information concerning any health issues when sick. They consequently search for the symptoms which they have, thus jumping into conclusion on the type of disease which they are suffering from. This is the reason as to why most people are currently suffering from overdose, since they do not rely on doctors, but instead depend on the internet for any form of health assistance.            

Conclusion       

The internet has proven to have a negative impact on the reasoning, thinking, and concentration of human beings. This has been attributed to overdependence of the internet by human beings which makes it hard for them to be able to use their own knowledge when dealing with serious issues. The internet consequently acts as the center of events whereby the human mind is only a component of the internet, and so all the functions of the human mind have been taken by the computer making human beings to rely on the internet in each and everything that they do.

References

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