Internet Addiction: How It May Affect Your Thinking Skills.
I’ve always known internet addiction is bad -too much of everything has been said to be bad- but i never imagined the effect could reach our brain.
How can internet addiction affect someone’s ability to think’ you may ask. well read on…
Internet addiction has been linked to lazy/weaker thinking skills by a new psychology study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
Smarter people tend to use their smartphones to find solution to a problem online less often, the research found.
Intuitive thinkers, though, who tend to be less intelligent, are more prone to searching for information online.
This encompasses those people who look up information that they actually know or could easily learn, but are unwilling to make the effort to actually think about it.
In contrast, analytical thinkers, who are generally more intelligent, use the internet to search for answers to problems less.
Dr Nathaniel Barr, who co-led the study, had this to say;
“Decades of research has revealed that humans are eager to avoid expending effort when problem-solving and it seems likely that people will increasingly use their smartphones as an extended mind.”
For the study, 660 people were orally interviewed, their verbal and literacy skills were assessed, along with their thinking style.
The results showed that people with stronger and more analytical thinking skills used the internet to look for solutions to problems -online- on their smartphones the least.
Now this isn’t a proof that Smartphones/internet actually decreases human intelligence, but it is definitely a proof that addiction to it leaves people with weaker thinking skills…
So when next you are faced with a question you are sure that you know the answer to but you just can’t remember it, instead of whipping out your phone and doing a quick search on google, yahoo or whichever search engine it is you frequent’ why don’t you make an effort and actually think about the answer. It’s a little more work up front, but it will help you in the long run.
