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James Howard

English 101

Nov 20 2010
( I Need a Title. Dang It. )

There has always been a revolution for everyone whenever new

technology transforms society. Of course, technological revolutions these

days are often without the expected intensities and fanfare of naming

entire ages of Stone, Bronze, and Industrialization. Instead, today

technologies such as the Internet opt for a shy, quiet presence through the

simple, widespread implantation in every sector of our lives. But the story

of author Steven Johnson remarks of the Internet’s quiet change with an

unnerving power:

I have to think about writing, think about it consciously…pen

and paper feel profoundly different to me now –they have the air of

an inferior technology about them…even my handwriting is

disintegrating, becoming less and less my handwriting, and more the

erratic, anonymous scrawl of something learning to write for the first

time. (Johnson)

Johnson’s story represents part of a different era of change where this new

technology alters our lives beyond an explicit level of utility. Whereas once

the norm was technology augmenting our lives, such as a paper or

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memory card as information storage, now it seems as if the technology

sneaks deep into human physiology in ways it shouldn’t. Paradoxically, the

harms are often ignored, or worse yet defined as a part of “progress”

against how technology should actually bring lives forwards and not

backwards. The Internet, while definitely needed along with other

technologies for the contemporary times, undertakes a hidden cost on

human behavior in manners quietly embraced and dearly dehumanizing.

If Internet users can’t see a single harm about what they’re using,

then they must be blind, because one problem’s staring right at them.

Literally. It is a widely seen observation that to use the Internet, a person

must actually acquire a wired computing machine, such as a personal

computer or a smart-phone, and stare at it. Through global proliferation

computers have become the main middleman between people and

cyberspace, and according a leading technology-research company’s

statistics, over a billion computers currently operate worldwide, with the

Internet no doubt hastening this growth into two billion soon (Shiffler). Now

as these users seek to use the Internet, they must fixate on a rather

crunched, brightly illuminated computer screen, putting the eyes to work in

dealing with an unnatural but tolerable task of glaring into a flat light bulb.

And then they must glare further into the portals of the Internet, which is

usually an even smaller web browser. Web browsing often shoots out a

mess of sensory bullets into the eye. In one browsing session, the constant
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change of websites, browsing, and infamous pop-up ads plus it’s related

advertisement cousins will blast out an unpredictable rainbow of colors,

flickering flashes, and luminance convulses. And supposedly this is a

normal, acceptable part of web browsing. It seems the light never ends.

Meanwhile in America, national surveys announce many depressing

statistics about sleep disorders. An amassed set of studies from the

National Center on Sleep Disorders pinpoints “50 to 70 million...from all

ages” suffering from a type of sleep disordering, with their research

recommendations placing “circadian desynchrony...at the core of certain

disorders that involve both insomnia and sleepiness”, thus requiring

exploration into “the circadian physiology of sleep disorders” (“National

Sleep…”, vii-013). More specialized research can explain the circadian

rhythm to be the premier human biological clock, which regulates a

person’s 24-cycle of eating and sleeping. Light, the same light from both

daylight and artificial lighting used by human technology, happens to be

the most crucial pivoting point in changing the circadian clock. And

suddenly the correlation between Internet use and sleep disorders begins

to be factor. From deduction, one of the most overlooked factors most

people do not factor into using their Internet use is the environment they

must create to access the Internet. This again requires an unnatural task of

dealing with even more unnatural light stimuli. The requirements of using

the computer can anchor a user to a computer screen for hours, and the
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requirements of accessing the Internet guarantees repeated exposure to

both very unpredictable light behavior and readily accessible access points

due to a browser or communication program’s wide availability. It is no

wonder why many Americans web browsers stay up and succumb to

sleeping-related problems so unknowingly. Besides the unknown struggle

a user often undergoes, the Federal government has only recently enacted

laws regulating web designs inside cyberspace. Laws now require

websites to cease the intensity of their light changes, as well as reduce

their natural flickering rates to a desktop (“Section508…”). While this law

does show action against the Internet’s full extent of harm, this

simultaneously acknowledges a clear and present public health concern

that affects consumers of information technology when the Internet is

involved. On a more disconcerting level, federal regulation remains both

unpublicized while browsing, and unclear - and the government makes no

attempt to clearly announce the Internets abilities to change biological

gears. No new acts since 1998 have formed as well. The sleep disorders

continue amongst one larger technological disorder in the U.S, as users

sleep through another acceptable health risk of ignorance.

In contrast, another issue stretches openly to the eyes of the public,

only to gain not concern but popular adoration. The terms “Youtuber”,

“Facebook stalker” and “porn addict” have become contemporary terms to

describe every day users within cotemporary youth culture and society.
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The disconcerting connotations of uncontrolled extremities within those

lifestyles simply ceased to exist, and a rather humorous acceptance and

near-expectancy of seeing those terms manifest upon use is a common

theme among the young population. Beyond the subjective truth of those

terms lies the root of concern: the Internet’s open arms for unhealthy aims.

When the Internet was introduced, many idealized goals ranging

from liberated subcultures in the cyber world to massive progressions in

classroom education poured into imagination. To an extent this is a

realized dream, but there’s an increasing dark side looming as a user

consequence. The increasingly accessible and unlimited amount of

content on the Internet allows one individual the ability to coordinate vast

amount of programs and media simultaneously. Especially in youth, it is

uncommon to hear anecdotes of daily “studying” consisting of many

messaging services, social networking, media streaming, media

downloading, web browsing, and homework research at one browser

interface. This design issue has become a heated discussion and,

according to researchers, a technological white elephant. The New York

Time recently reported from an Internet-technology analyst that: “

‘Multitasking using ubiquitous, interactive and highly stimulating computers

and phones…appears to have a more powerful effect than TV…If you’ve

grown up processing multiple media, that’s exactly the mode you’re going

to fall into when put in that environment — you develop a need for that
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stimulation,’ he said”( Ritchell 4). And the multi-tasking deficit persists

beyond the young years. New research at Stanford University tested a

mixture of college and adult aged participants who multitasking, concluding

that heavy multitaskers of all ages suffered 50% delayed response times to

correct decisions, and over 100% likelihood of error-making while filtering

environmental stimuli or internal cognition ( Ophir et al.). Both of these

voices provide an opposing and scientific observation of the Internet’s

ironically regressive effect on modern health and education. They have

pinpointed a theme understandable to all Internet users by proving

something very deceptive against an accepted social norm of endorsing

the “liberating” Internet attributes. A technology’s attached culture of freely

interactive behaviors is one thing, but rewiring the human brain’s physical

content invokes closer forfeits towards brainwashing.

Disagreements have come against claims of the Internet’s harms to

society. One notable author named Scott Rosenberg presented a worthy

position against the supposed Internet concerns:

“What about the fear that blogging…will turn us into short-form

thinkers? This turns out to be only the latest in a long line of culture

scares – alarms that accompany the arrival of every new

communications medium. Televisions and movies would privilege

visual learning…radio and the telephone would destroy literacy…

Socrates ‘uncorks at length at how writing damages memory…’”.

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(Rosenberg)

Despite mainly discussing web-blogs, his argument can also go in defense

of the social and education changes the Internet brings. Yet by argument

his stance makes comparisons, and comparisons are not logical

equivalences, just as how blogging and the Internet are neither the same

in real life nor do they effect their users in the same way. His argument

relies on if the Internet allows an acceptably revolutionizing change of

lifestyle for the better, yet

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Works Cited

Johnson, Steven. Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the

Way We Create and Communicate. New York: Basic, 1999. Print. 30

Nov 2010.

Ophir, Eyal, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner. "Cognitive control in

media multitaskers." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

of the United States of America 106.37 (2009): 15583-15587. Academic

Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

Richtell, Matt. "Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction." New York Times

21 Nov 2010: 4. Web. 3 Dec 2010.

Rosenberg, Scott. “Say Everything FILL IN EVERYTHING ELSE” New

York: Crown, 2009. Print. 20 Nov. 2010.

Shiffler III, George. "Forecast: PC Installed Base, Worldwide, 2004-2012”.

Gartner Inc. 10 Apr 2008. n. pag. Gartner Inc. Web. 1 Dec 2010.

United States. Department of Health and Human Services. National Sleep

Disorder Research Plan. Washington: National Institutes of Health, July

2003. Web. 2 Dec 2010.

United States. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Washington:

Section508.gov, 1998. Web. 2 Dec 2010.

Vigdor, Jacob L. Scaling the Digital Divide: Home Computer Technology

and Student Achievement. National Bureau of Economic Research

Working Paper Series, No. 16078. (June 2010), 16078. 3 Dec 2010.