As with most things, the benefits from computers and technology is all about balance. From an article in The Independent – What the web is teaching our brains, a list of activities and the benefits each provides. Internet research: Boosts the ability to integrate and process information as well as enhancing decision-making skills. General browsing: Encourages the use of continuous partial attention and multi-tasking, which can impair cognition and cause irritability Playing computer games: May improve multi-tasking skills, memory and peripheral vision. Can lead to antisocial behaviour. Building a blog or website: Building a blog or your own website improves frontal lobe function, reasoning and memory. Sorting email: Boosts information-processing functions in the brain’s frontal lobe. Can also cause stress. Using emoticons: Exercises brain centres linked to emotion and social connection; particularly beneficial to those who use computers for long periods. Tweeting and chatrooms: Enhances peripheral attention, helps to boost self-esteem and protects the hippocampus. The article includes more information on the “why” or how it works, and of course some negative aspects of internet & technology usage too. Worth reading: Facebook and Bebo risk ‘infantilising’ the human mind In Defense of Distraction Is Google Making Us Stupid? Gin, Television,
Control is an Illusion You Need to Let Go
The issue of control comes up over and over again when we talk about the online world. It recently it came up at Internet Librarian in many different ways, including: How do I stop a staff member from wasting time on Facebook? How do we control what staff are saying online? Management wants everything posted online (Twitter, Facebook, blogs etc) to go through PR. We don’t want employees to be able to access social networking sites? What about privacy? We can’t allow just anyone to post a comment without approving it first. How do we know a student is who they say they are? I have answers to all of these questions, but these questions aren’t what this is about, what they represent is, control. Or the illusion of control. The desire for control comes from fear. Fear of change, of the unknown, of doing things differently, of a situation not created by us, of taking risks. It is human nature to fear these things, it’s how we’ve survived. So is adaptation and times are changing, just as they always do, and we need to adapt. In the internet age your image/brand no longer belongs to you. It belongs to
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