Katherine Phillips
ENG 110 H6
Final Draft , Paper 2
Information Overload
Constant motion, constant stimulation, never stopping to even take a breath has become the norm in this culture. People crave a continuous flow of stimulation, only taking breaks from activity, to move onto a different, slightly less stimulating activities. People have become accustomed to this kind of life, which can be very overwhelming especially when there is such a plethora of information which people always have access to. There are two authors who have written pieces about this constant obtainability of information and how it could be affecting the attention of the younger generations. Richard Restak has written a piece titled “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era”, sharing his views on the current society’s inability to devote one’s attention to the task at hand without being preoccupied with another activity in regards to one’s relationship to technology. He mentions how, as a whole, our society is unable to listen to each other or accomplish a task without getting distracted in some form, and how this can be a detriment to the functioning of this society. The other author is Sam Anderson, who wrote “In Defense of Distraction”, speaking about how all of the technological advances that have been made in past ten years or so have been god for our societies. He feels that although they have caused some issues in terms of distraction levels and such, they have also allowed us as a cultural whole to have access to a lot of information and communication that would be unobtainable without it. Over time our society has been picking up the pace at which we live our day to day lives, believing that the more we can cram into a certain time frame, the better off we will be, but this constant overload and wealth of information may prove to be more detrimental to the strength of young minds than originally thought.
The expanding and ever changing flow of material in which young minds have access to is decomposing the youths abilities to communicate and to form deeper relationships. Nowadays when it comes to interactions between younger people, they are large in quantity yet few and far between in a deeper sense of quality. This is because a rooted friendship takes a long time to form and grow, which means that it requires more effort from both parties than what most people are used to giving. To have this kind of relationship, it means people will have to take time to focus on the person they want a relationship with, whether platonically or romantically. Coupling this factor with the fact that there are distractions all around us, even in our pockets, makes it almost impossible to form genuine, truly meaningful connections with those around oneself. Our cell phones pose as large distractions from the people around us, they occupy most of the time we spend awake, no matter if it is for recreational use or for work purposes. They create a bubble in which we become enveloped, putting up a wall between us and the surrounding people, immediately removing the possibility for conversation. Without this initial opportunity for connection, the whole idea of a relationship is lost.
As much as the constant access to information and technology impairs the chance for communication, it is also changing the way our brains physically function. We are altering the way our brain works through a slow process, sparked and fed by the constant stream of information and stimulus we expose ourselves to. Although this could be seen as a positive alteration in terms of how efficiently we function, “Such facility in rapid information processing requires profound alterations in our brain. And such alterations come at a cost – a devaluation of the depth and quality of our relationships” (Restak, 378). Such statements can be supported by simply watching interactions one has with others throughout the day. It is clear to see that with the companionship of their technological devises, their drive to create person-to-person relationships is diminishing rapidly, with some finding it unnecessary in general. Young minds who believe this is the best way to live their lives are creating an unsteady platform for the future when it comes to how they will continue to function in their societies and how the generations after them will grow.
In his piece titled “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era”, Restak shares a story of one of his clients who talks about how the younger people of the world never take time to stop and simply have a conversation with someone around them without pulling out a cell phone or a laptop, or without some form of distraction. Due to the access most young people have to all kinds of information, it is becoming more and more unusual to have an interaction that is distraction free, and that is having a huge impact on how well younger people are forming relationships. One of Restak’s client shares in the piece that “‘ Nobody has the time to listen anymore’” (Restak, 378), sharing her concern for the fact that people are so caught up in their lives on the internet and the swirling information in their phones or computers that they cannot take even the smallest amount of time to listen to what another human has to share with them. The lack of attention given to other people due to the overwhelming amounts of information is changing how we are forming relationships with them, since it seems the relationships one through technology are more important than the ones they could be forming with the people living around them. A perpetual stream of information is creating a world in which “ Our brain is being forced to manage increasing amounts of information within shorter and shorter time intervals ” (Restak, 378). Restak continues to say that this new way of life is a transition is one that some people cannot make, which forms a greater sense of inattention, therefore furthering the issue of how people interact with one another. As a culture, there has been wide range shifts throughout the last ten years or so that have been sparked by the reliance on, and use of, technology. This has had a large effect on how we are learning to interact with one another. With so much exposure on young minds regarding the world around them, when it comes to their relationships with other people, it is weakening their minds.
Many think that ignorance is becoming less common since there is greater access to knowledge, yet when it comes to the steady flow of information young minds are discovering, the opposite is true. Many people have no idea how this is affecting them since it is a cultural situation which no one has ever had to experience before. Around the clock stimulation is changing how we function as a society yet it is also affecting how we are functioning as individuals without most of us even realizing what we are doing to ourselves. What is happening to our society now is being likened to what happened when smoking cigarettes became a bigger fad a few decades ago. Anderson shares that “‘ People aren’t aware [of] what’s happening to their mental processes,’ he says, ‘in the same way that people years ago couldn’t look into their lungs and see the residual deposits’” (Anderson, 4). When it comes to looking at the effects of this technological shift on the young minds, there is no way to really know or predict how this will work out for them in the future. It might take years for people to decide that we should not use technology the way we are today, similarly to how people used to smoke. In modern societies, generally people feel that the access to information which they currently have is for the better and that the more access we gain, the better off we will be and the smarter a society we will be. If looking around a public place, it is a safe bet that over the span of even a few minutes, everyone around would be using some form technolog. With this kind of lifestyle, people could easily spend all of their time on their devices, living in a reality far from the one that is physically around them. In Anderson’s work “In Defense of Distraction”, he shares his views on how he knows that this shift could be detrimental, he says to the reader how he “‘ could spend [his] whole day, [his] whole night, just answering e-mails. [He] just can’t deal with it all. None of this happened even ten years ago. It was a lot calmer. There was a lot of opportunity for getting steady work done” (Anderson, 4). Although Anderson knows that this constant activity and interaction with the internet and worldly information can make life easier and has its benefits, this shows he acknowledges how it is creating a more chaotic world, a world where it is becoming harder to doing things with a “one at a time” mindset. Young minds growing up in this kind of world have no idea how it could be changing them, since they have never known a different way of life, for them it has always been a continuous information flud. These fresh minds are quickly degressing in terms of their ability to have singular attention, meaning that “‘as the number of sensations increase, the time which we have for reacting to and digesting them becomes less … the rhythm of our life becomes quicker, the wavelengths … of our mental life grow shorter’” (Restak, 379). Technology may end up being our generations cigarettes, yet as we go on living our lives in the current society we are in, we may not know it until much later on. The effects of this are unknown and people should be more aware of how this could be possibly weakening the young minds in these cultures.
As a whole we have become so accustomed to constantly having to do so much work, and to have to balance so many aspects of life at once, that they have gained this false way of life. Living thinking that multitasking between different situations and things that may call for our attention is the best way to accomplish their tasks. This is a very misleading idea because this multitasking is distracting many from their work. It is not working on two things at once, it is switching between the two. In Restak’s work, he shares an example which puts the idea of multitasking into perspective: “Imagine yourself driving in light traffic on a clear day while chatting on the phone with a friend … you encounter heavier traffic and the onset of a torrential rainstorm … you continue to talk a bit longer, shifting your attention between your friends patter and the rapidly deteriorating road conditions. As a result you fail to notice that the tractor-trailer to your right is starting to slide in your direction … your divided attention … set you up for that fatal accident” (Restak 383). This is the most effective way for people to see how detrimental and damaging multitasking can be. It may be an extreme example but it highlights how people are cocky when it comes to their own abilities to juggle many tasks at once, when in reality it something which endangers us more than helps us to succeed, young and old minds alike. As technology is moving into the workplaces and the classrooms, it is becoming harder to avoid multitasking since this access to the internet makes it much easier for folks to become distracted and to begin looking at other activities. When we are working “we keep an average of eight windows open on our computer screens at one time and skip between them every thirty seconds. When we read online, we hardly even read at all – our eyes run down the page in an F pattern, scanning for keywords” (Anderson, 5), meaning that when working on computers we are less likely to do our work thoroughly. We are much less likely to delve into the readings or work as we are supposed to in order to do the necessary work with these materials. For young minds using more and more technology, it can be hard for them to complete their work to the the fullest of their abilities because of the distractions and multitasking the takes place. Many feel that it is quicker and easier to do it this way, since they have so much access to such a vast amount of resources, yet it can be more difficult to do so in a thorough fashion.
When it comes to the health of young minds in a world that is being taken over by technology and the access to information that comes with it, it can be very detrimental to the vulnerable, moldable minds. It is a mystery when it comes to knowing how this change will affect the generations of the future, and the kinds of health impacts it holds, but from what it already being seen, it is clear that, although this technological and informational alteration has its advantages and benefits, it is changing other parts of our societies in a negative way.
Works Cited
Anderson, Sam. “In Defense of Distraction.” New York Magazine, 17 May 2009.
Restak, Richard M. “The New Brain: How the Modern Age Is Rewiring Your Mind.” The New Brain: How the Modern Age Is Rewiring Your Mind, Rodale, 2003, pp. 372–386.
