How the Internet Is Changing Your Brain
20 years ago, the iPhone was just a seed of a dream in Steve Jobs' mind. But today, if you're reading this, you have access to countless screens and endless gigabytes of information; and you probably have a phone in your pocket that you can't be separated from without experiencing a cold rush of panic. Like it or not, you live in the digital age.
Everything is happening so fast these days; it's hard to find the time to seriously question how technology has altered the fabric of our realities. But here are four major ways the Internet has made our minds different from how they were before—so much so that we can never go back.
Image via 1. We never have to wonder about anything
Once upon a time, if you were sitting at dinner and a question came up about, say, climate change or the effects of a certain drug, you would have to either find someone who knew the answer or wait until a library opened. Then you'd have to go there and parse through the Dewey Decimal System until you found a volume that might be able to provide the answer.
Today, we all have any piece of information, no matter how small or obscure, quite literally at our fingertips. So we should be smarter than ever, right? But all this instantly accessible information is coming at a price. One study found that millennials' memories are worse than seniors; and a recent Columbia University study revealed that if people feel they will be able to look up something in the future, they'll be less likely to remember it.
In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr argues that technology is making us stupider, less likely to think critically and retain the information we need. Part of this is because every time we go online, we are confronted with billions of sources vying for our attention, making it difficult to deploy the kind of focused concentration needed to synthesize and reflect on information.
Also, now that we have endless information at our fingertips, many people have proposed that we may be less curious than ever, less inclined to come up with original ideas. However, curiosity is a fluid entity, and though the Internet offers more resources than ever, that also means that more people are creating content than ever before. And new innovative technologies are cropping up every day, revealing that although the Internet might be making some of us stupider, it's also a fertile breeding ground for incredible, world-changing inventions and unprecedentedly viral content.
2. We're more interconnected—and lonelier than ever
Once upon a time, you had to call someone up to speak to them, but now you can see what any of your friends are doing at any time. Instagram and Snapchat stories make it possible to share intimate images of our lives on a wide scale with huge audiences at any time; and online algorithms make it so that whatever you post will never truly vanish from the Internet, even if you delete it. We can see the daily coffee choices and midnight tear-stained selfies of our favorite stars; we can hit up old friends from across the globe with a single Facebook search.
Humans have always been hard-wired for connection, desperately looking for kinship and community, and so it makes sense that the Internet has become so addictive. Every ping, alert, and notification provokes the same kind of dopamine rush that comes from an expression of love and friendship. On the other hand, cyberbullying and persistently comparing oneself to others in the virtual sphere can both have very adverse effects in the real world.
Some studies have proposed that social media increases levels of loneliness. One found that heavy Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram use can contribute to depression in young adults. Excessive time on Facebook has also been found to be associated with poor physical health and life satisfaction. On the other hand, social media has presented an opportunity for isolated adults and senior citizens to reach out and connect; and online fan and lifestyle communities provide oases for people all over the world.
Image via Business Insider
For better or for worse, the Internet has changed the way we connect. It's also changed the way we love. 26 million matches are made every day on dating apps, and roughly 13% of people who met on dating apps got married. And phones allow us to communicate with anyone at any moment of the day, creating whole new rules and expectations for relationships, making them altogether more interactive and involved than they once were. Plus, adult entertainment is fundamentally changing the way we have sex, with
many studies revealing that it's lowering sex drives and creating unrealistic expectations across the board.
It's the same for work: a Fortune study found that the average white-collar worker spends three hours per day checking emails. This comes part and parcel with the gig economy, that staple of Millennial culture built on perpetual interconnectedness and 24/7 "hustle"—a phenomenon that often leads to burnout.
3. We can have more than one reality—or can hide inside our individual worlds more easily than ever
The Internet has made it easier than ever to craft false personas and to embody illusory identities. We can use Photoshop to alter our appearances; we can leverage small talents to viral fame and huge monetary gains, and we can completely escape our world in exchange for online communities and ever-growing virtual and augmented reality options.
The Internet is also altering our perceptions of reality. Although people once thought that interconnected online communities would facilitate the sharing of diverse viewpoints, it has turned out that social media allows us to access echo chambers even more isolated and partisan than what we'd see in our real lives.
In short, we're all at risk of being catfished.
4. Many of us are completely addicted
When was the last time you went a day without checking your phone? A week? And do you think that if you needed to, you could quit? Most likely, the answer is no, so you'd better believe it: you're addicted to technology. But you're not alone. A 2017 study found that 210 million people may be addicted worldwide.
There are five primary types of Internet addictions: cyber-sexual addiction, net compulsions (online shopping), cyber relationships (online dating), gaming, and information seeking (surfing). In recent years, internet addiction rehab has grown in popularity. The majority of people with legitimate internet addiction problems are men in their teens to late thirties, but it's likely that we all suffer from this to some extent.
Image via the Fix
Although the Internet is changing everything about our lives, ultimately, there is no clear consensus on whether these changes are for the worse or the better. But the changes will be growing more extreme over the years. Moore's Law proposes that, essentially, overall technological processing power will double each year, indefinitely—meaning that technology will continue to advance at an unimaginable rate. If the past twenty years have given us iPhones, what will the next twenty bring? The next hundred, if we make it that far without global warming ending everything?
Only time will tell. We won't be the same—but then again, we were never meant to remain stagnant as a species. Change and chaos are the laws of the human race, and as a species, we've always been obsessed with progress.
Some theorists believe that technological progress will only end when we create an operating system more intelligent than us, in a revolutionary event called the singularity—theoretical future event when computer intelligence surpasses that of humans. If this happens, the AI could decide to eliminate us. That's another story—but until then, the sky is the limit for innovators and consumers everywhere.
Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer and musician from New York City. Follow her on Twitter @edenarielmusic.
The Illusion of Consumer Choice
That is until Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) explains that Brooklyn Without Limits is actually owned by oil giant Halliburton, and that all of Lemon's jeans were made in a sweatshop. While this scene is hilarious, it's comic value comes from a place of truth. Kashi is owned by Kellogg's. Pepsi owns Naked Juice. Clorox owns Burt's Bees. Even Ben and Jerry's, the ice cream industry's paragons of civic responsibility and social justice, are owned by Unilever, the world's largest consumer goods company.
The marriage between smaller companies and large corporations is nothing new however, and there are certainly advantages on both sides of the aisle.
Smaller companies gain greater financial resources and wider distribution channels, while conglomerates purchase the marketing rights, and reputations of the companies they invest in. From a consumer standpoint, a buyout can occasionally mean a change in price or quality, but in today's brand-driven retail market a consumer is only likely to notice changes if she goes looking for one. Still, there's something fundamentally icky about the way so few companies control the majority of the American retail space.
On the one hand, this makes shopping for groceries a bit of a Hobson's choice, creating the illusion of alternatives without ever really providing any.
On the other, large conglomerates like General Mills and PepsiCo rob American citizens of a fundamental right: the ability to vote with their wallets. That's to say that the underpinnings of our democracy have been so corroded by corporate lobbyists and a largely nonsensical electoral system, that one of the most meaningful forms of political activism in this country is to purchase goods from companies whose (supposed) political agendas align with your personal beliefs. Without diverging into a history lesson or editorializing about the state of our republic, it's important to note that even this limited capacity to participate in the democratic process is being infringed upon.
This is where your food comes from
Conglomerates aren't isolated to the world of retail and foodstuffs though.
Tech giants like Google and Apple dominate their respective marketplaces in a way that would have John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie spinning in their graves. For example, what if someone had strong political opinions about sweatshops and the way Southeast Asian factory workers are treated? When forced to pick between Apple and Samsung, there's only the illusion of choice; both companies manufacture their phones in sweatshops. From a manufacturing standpoint, Samsung and Apple combined control over 70% of the US smartphone market. Other companies like HTC, LG, and Motorola–regardless of their (most likely loose) position on ethical labor– are pressured to use the same unsavory business practices in an attempt to stay competitive.
When it comes to operating systems, the monopolies become even more apparent.
Android (Google) and Apple have their operating systems in over 98% of America's smartphones, Android taking the lion's share at about two-thirds of the total marketplace. If Google's Android OS is in a phone, Google is making money, and by extension are complicit in whatever human rights violations are committed by the phone's manufacturer. Apple manufactures its own phones, so they're even more directly responsible for the human suffering involved in their factories. All this considered, the conscientious consumer really has no choice but to use the products or services from morally ambiguous companies. In order to properly boycott Google and Apple over their tacit endorsement of slave labor, one would have to give up Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube, iTunes, Apple Music, Google Play, The Zagat Guide, Shazam, Beats by Dre, Emagic, Siri, Texture, Apigee, HopStop, and Waze. Those are just the popular ones. The sheer volume of Google and Apple-made products significantly dilutes the value of voting with one's wallet.
Mark Zuckerberg in Congressional Hearing
The solution for our current predicament, as it's been in the past, is the enforcement of antitrust laws and the busting up of corporations found to be participating in de facto monopolies.
That said, it probably won't be easy, as we have a Republican majority on the Supreme Court and Washington's current economic position is one of deregulation. But even these things weren't true, certain companies–the tech giants (Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook) in particular are probably too big to be reigned in. Mark Zuckerberg made headlines when he was forced to testify in front of Congress about Cambridge Analytica, but outside of a minor PR crisis, Facebook didn't really suffer any consequences. In fact, Zuckerberg reportedly made three billion dollars during his time in Washington. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook have a combined market capitalization equal to the GDP of France and a 24% share of the S&P 500. These tech companies now function more like independent, sovereign governments than corporations. The effort to slow their growth would require a tribunal on the world stage, and the largest antitrust lawsuit in the history of mankind.
The question we're ultimately left with, is who really holds power in America?
Some might say it's indexers and Wall Street money managers- the folks who determine a company's value, but they can only fudge their numbers so much. No one at McGraw-Hill is going to push Google out of the S&P 500. Others might say it lies with the government, but with the amount of corporate lobbyists currently in Washington, this claim feels dubious as well. As our government officials, backed by corporate money, lean into the deregulation of the markets, it's becoming more and more obvious that Congress doesn't speak for the people. This may seem cynical, but here's a list of the how much certain members of Congress made from lobbyists during the 2017-2018 election cycle so far.
What's coming to the fore is a battle between the U.S. government and the large conglomerates that control most of the economy.
The implications of allowing these monopolies to win are much farther reaching than inconvenient pricing and a general lack of choice. The future of American democracy is hanging in the balance. As voter, all you can do is research candidates with no corporate ties, and try to put them in office. Whether or not the U.S. government has the clout to go against the quasi-sovereign tech company/nations, depends entirely on this.
Matt Clibanoff is a writer and editor based in New York City who covers music, politics, sports and pop culture. His editorial work can be found in Inked Magazine, Popdust, The Liberty Project, and All Things Go. His fiction has been published in Forth Magazine. -- Find Matt at his website and on Twitter: @mattclibanoff