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Internet is Making Us Dumber
During the past two centuries the world has witnessed an explosion of technological advances. There has been much debate about the Internet, and specifically about the effects of the wed search engine like Google. Many respected writers, a plethora of articles and books have been published lately arguing both sides of the issue. While many writers claim that the internet has a negative, damaging effect on the brain and cognition, others see the benefits of technology in helping us achieve the previously unachievable and freeing us from many time-consuming activities. Based on our research and personal experience, we have found out several reasons to support the argument such as the negative impacts on human behaviour, degeneration of human abilities and contradictory information. Therefore, we strongly agree that the sheer amount of information that we have access to nowadays is actually making us dumber. Information that we have access to is making us dumber because of contradictory information. Information can be defined as facts or details about a situation, person, or event. According to Wikipedia (2013), as the world moves into a new era of globalization, an increasing number of people are connecting to the internet to conduct their own research and are given the ability to produce as well as consume the data accessed on an increasing number of websites. Users are now classified as active users because more people in society are participating in the Digital and Information Age. More and more people are considered to be active writers and viewers because of their participation. This flow has created a new life where we are now in danger of becoming dependent on this method of access to information. Therefore we see an information overload from the access to so much information, almost instantaneously, without knowing the validity of the content and the risk of misinformation (Wikipedia, 2013). Information overload also refers to the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information. In additional, the more information overload, it leads to another problem which is the credibility of information. For example, Wikipedia. Wikipedia's 30 million articles are written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone having access to the site. As it can be edited by anyone, there is no strong prove that it is a reliable source. It leads us to get the false information, therefore the contradictory information is actually making humans dumber.
Internet brings a major consequence which is affecting human memory. According to Carr (2010), he said that “People who read text studded with links, the studies show, comprehend less than those who read traditional linear text.” In other words, “People who watch busy multimedia presentations remember less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner.” For example, people who are able to concentrate on one thing are usually understand more than people who are continually distracted by alerts, emails and other messages. People who do one thing at a time are also more creative and productive than people who juggle many tasks at a time. All these effects are caused by the division of attention. “The richness of our thoughts, our memories and even our personalities links on our ability to focus the mind and sustain concentration.” For an example, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking when we're constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online (Carr, 2010). In addition, “Just as we learn through transactive memory who knows what in our families and offices, we are learning what the computer “knows” and when we should attend to where we have stored information in our computer-based memories (Sparrow, Liu, & Wegner, 2011).” “We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems that remember less by knowing information than by knowing where the information can be found (Sparrow, Liu, & Wegner, 2011).” Besides that, internet also affects our basic daily skills. According to Martin (2013), he said that the writing skills of today’s young generation have declined quite tremendously due to the excessive usage of online chatting and shortcuts. The children have totally forgot about improving their writing skills as they are relying more and more on digital communication these days. They do not know how to use grammar properly, how to do cursive writing and the spelling of different words (Martin, 2013). In addition, it also affects the physical interactivity. Martin (2013) stated that “more and more people are interacting with others through different platforms like apps, role-playing online games, social networks, etc.” This may leads to the effect of the children do not know how to carry the gesture when they meet others in person or do not know how to interact with others (Martin, 2013). Moreover, internet also affect out critical thinking skill. Stevens (2010) argued that the researchers found that “found that students children’s reading abilities now do less research before answering a question.” The researchers also found that the students trusted their friends’ answers rather than their parents. The researchers said that this is the consequence of internet exposure, but it could also be that children are more trusting and less skeptical (Stevens A., 2010).
However, the sheer amount of information that we can access nowadays are making us smarter through more brain activities. As any information can be access at anywhere, we can get to know everything, but our brains can be free from any storage task. This is because instead of turning our brain into meta-information systems, we only have to be smart in searching and analyzing overloaded information (Guessoum, 2013, para 7). At the same time, Guessoum (2013) explained that we have interfaced our free brains with all the information that we can tap into unconsciously (para 6). These activities helps exercise and improve brain function. According to Anderson ("n.d."), searching for things on internet appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry within the brain (para 2). This is because there are many information that we able to access easily, so we need to be smart in using all the searching tools which are available to us. It trains our brain much to know how and where to find useful data on each specific topic. After searching, we need to analyze the reliability of information that we found. Our brain have to work again at this step as information may be a personal opinion or a fantasy. Therefore, our brains are becoming more powerful in the areas that control decision making and problem solving (Anderson,”n.d.”, para 2).
This may be true at the beginning. On the other hand, for a longer period, we get used to such a convenient technology to access to any information easily, we may become lazy. As we know we can get any information in a shorter time, so we attempt to do things at the very last minute. This is a very dumb action because we know that last minute work will never be a good piece of work. At the same time, we do not look for improvement on our daily skills as we depends mainly on the information from the internet.
We came across barriers to our thinking like fear to challenge. In the process of doing this research paper as assigned to work in group, everyone had their own opinion and biases. Boss (2012) stated, “People who hold views that are backed by public opinion or the law may be particularly likely to resist when these views are challenged: They don’t want to see the status quo upset” (p.21). This is how fear to challenge happened, we fail to stand up to others because we fear that others will challenge our belief. However with the help of the lecture of critical thinking especially on the characteristics of a good critical thinking and the Three-Tier Model of Thinking, we successfully overcome them. We learned to be effective in communication. We shared our thoughts in the most comfortable way. In additional, open-minded skepticism is also one of the factors. We are willing to work toward overcoming personal prejudices and biases. Furthermore, the Three-Tier Model provided a dynamic model of critical thinking in which analysis is always returning to experience for confirmation. The process on it can be broken down into experience, interpretation, and analysis. In conclusion, we strongly agree that the sheer amount of information nowadays are making us dumber. This is because studies showed that information nowadays is overloaded. It also affects our memory and daily basic skills. However, the sheer amount of information that we can access nowadays train our brain through searching and analyzing. But in a longer period, it may bring us negative effects.

References
Anderson, R. ("n.d."). The Internet is making us smarter and this headline may be too long to sustain your attention. Retrieved from http://www.getfluid.com/the-internet-is-making-us-smarter-and-this-headline-may-be-too-long-to-sustain-your-attention/
Boss, J. (2012). Think (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Carr, N. (2010, June 5). Does the internet make you dumber?. Retrieved from
Guessoum, N. (2013, October 10). Is the internet making us dumber or smarter? Retrieved from http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/is-the-internet-making-us-dumber-or-smarter-1.1241754
Martin, A. (2013, May 30). The 4 negative side effects of technology. Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/the-4-negative-side-effects-of-technology/
Sparrow, B., Liu, J., & Wegner, D. M. (2011, July 14). Google effects on memory: Cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips. Retrieved from http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/pdfs/science.1207745.full.pdf
Stevens, A. (2010, Feb 23). Impact of the internet on critical reading and writing skills. Retrieved from http://www.readinghorizons.com/blog/post/2010/02/23/Impact-of-the-Internet-on-Critical-Reading-and-Writing-Skills.aspx
Wikipedia. (2013). Information Overload. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload#cite_note-8