Technology's Effect On Children

This is what happens when I sit down and try to narrow my thesis.

• Is the Internet stunting childhood development?
• Are there repercussions to exposing very young children to the Internet?
• What are the repercussions of exposing toddlers to the Internet?
• How is the Internet affecting young children’s ability to think?
• There are repercussions to exposing very young children to the Internet.
• The Internet is impeding young children’s ability to think.
• Is today’s technological environment stunting children’s mental development?
• Today’s technological environment is stunting mental development in children.
• The Internet moves crazy fast and that’s a lot to take in for like, a four year old, and it’s possible that it might be making it harder for them to learn and be smart and stuff but also there’s not that much evidence so here’s why it might be a little bit true kind of according to me and a little bit according to science.
• THIS IS SO HARD TO SAY INTELLECTUALLY

The Internet, television, and other modern technologies have detrimental effects on children and their overall psychological development.

At first, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do my project on. In class on Wednesday, I think someone mentioned the fact that we’re the transitional generation (don’t remember who, though). This got me thinking: If we’re completely immersed in this, and we’re just the bridge, then how is exposure to technology affecting young children today? I would like to research how technology is stunting (or promoting) development. I always think about how different our lives would be without such exposure to the Internet, cell phones, television, etc. But technology has exponentially developed since we were small children, and there is a generation growing up completely immersed in technology. Carr mentions in his book that he has a hard time getting through a lengthy book; and he grew up with only books at his disposal! If a grown man in this time is experiencing such difficulties, then I can only imagine the attention span of a kid who’s been using an iPad since he was three years old.

“Over the last few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think” (5).

This passage reminds me a lot of the papers we wrote on our experience with the Internet, and my topic in particular. I titled it “The Internet Is Melting My Brain” and talked about how my mind felt very much affected by the Internet. This passage struck a chord with me because I immediately thought, “Yes! Exactly!” The scary part is, though, that Carr is a grown man with more extensive experience with life without the Internet. When I read this, I realized that there isn’t much “memory to reprogram.” Since I was very young, media has been molding the way I think, and that is both terrifying and fascinating. Who would I be had I grown up without the Internet? I’m not sure there’s any way of knowing.

“Every technology is an expression of human will. Through our tools, we seek to expand our power and control over our circumstances—over nature, over time and distance, over one another” (44).

This reminded me of something I once saw (online, of course) that said, “Time doesn’t exist. Clocks exist.” Although not exactly true, it’s sort of a chilling statement. Time is a concept we have always had, yet people have not always necessarily perceived the way we do today. It’s interesting to think that technology is the human race’s exertion of power. Carr talks about how all of these technologies—maps, clocks, books, the Internet—have a lasting impact on how we think. The Internet affecting the way we think, then, is in no way a new phenomenon. It’s been happening from the beginning, and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing; change is the only way in which we expand intellectually.

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