Internet 'turning us into lab rats feeding on pellets of social nourishment'

[snagglepuss]

snip

The non-stop information overload also makes it impossible to think deeply in a syndrome has been christened Divided Attention Disorder, or DAD.

Mr Carr, who wrote a book called The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains, says that our basic human instinct to search for new information makes us addicted to our inboxes.


snip


‘Our gadgets have turned us into hi-tech lab rats, mindlessly pressing levers in the hope of receiving a pellet of social or intellectual nourishment.

‘What makes digital messages all the more compelling is their uncertainty. There’s always the possibility that something important is waiting for us in our inbox … overwhelms our knowledge that most online missives are trivial.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1336452/Email-addiction-turning-lab-rats-feeding-pellets-social-nourishment.html#ixzz17Sb0IWuC

[tridim]

1. Shared Information on the Internet healed my bum shoulder

And saved me from a $5,000 surgery.

If you USE the information in a smart way, it is invaluable. If you don't, it's a waste of time.

[snagglepuss]

3. Where does the article state that the the internet or email

or forums aren't valuable? Did you read the article? The article doesn't mention anything about wasted time, the article points out the internet's possisble neurological affect.

[villager]

2. unrecc'd by the info-overload crowd!

Takes all types to make a website forum, I guess...

[snagglepuss]

4. Why unrec this? Rather baffling. Crackberry is a widely used term because

people recognize their addiction to it.

[Newest Reality]

5. It depends on how you are using it.

Personally, staring at a one-way device where strangers come into your home and say and do whatever they want while you and even your children passively absorb it looks like more of a ominous social problem to me -- considering how "normal" it is assumed to be.

Addictions can be considered anchors for behavior that can exclude other choices and limit flexibility. However, I leave the choice and its effects to those who are accessing their particular anchors.

For many, the Internet is a fantastic and diverse resource. Not everyone is a social network, chatting butterfly, exclusively.

Without the access to a decent spectrum of information and opinions, (that we can then expose to our own discernment) the Cloud of Unknowing designed by the Keepers of the System would be much darker and denser indeed. We would have less we can utilize in any attempts to balance the equations of McPravda.

[evirus]

6. and yet here you are...

on the internet...

...on a message board

this sounds like the typical anti-modern technology drivel.

[snagglepuss]

7. Oh the irony. It doesn't seem like you were able to absorb the information

or did you bother to read it. I ask because your remark makes no sense.

[pleah]

8. Where's my pellet?!!!!

:evilgrin:

[The Doctor.]

9. Many Pellets Here;

http://www.cracked.com

http://lookingforgroup.com

Oooo! and here;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/


I are internetz pak-ratz!


Interestingly, I do find myself killing inordinate amounts of time on the internet. I realized some time ago it was a scavenger-reward system. Not entirely different from the way video games artificially stimulate TCT-Hippocampus-Hypothalamus rewards. Finding information that triggers emotional responses keeps us looking for more/different stimuli to fill our infinite database.


Take this pellet;



















See?

[snagglepuss]

11. After seeing that picture I won't tell you about lovemeow.com as it would

just fuel your addiction:)

[The Doctor.]

13. Nooooooooo ooooooooooooooo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Must. Consume. More. Stimuli.


:freak:

[snagglepuss]

15. Internet pak-rat. Sounds like it has potential to be a reality tv show like

Hoarders except people would have dislose what's in favorites.

[snagglepuss]

12. You iz a good pleah.

How's that?

[pleah]

16. Heeheehee tanks!

;-)

[Tumbulu]

10. This is definitely something that is happening to me

I have considered it an addiction for awhile now.

Living in a rural area I treasure the huge library of info at my disposal- that was once only available driving hours to a library or paying lots of money for books and magazines. But I go on the net far too often just to read news and commentary and I think that for me, it is out of hand.

[The Doctor.]

14. No, not at all.

You have nothing to worry about, it's all just information. Have some Turkish Delight while you're here, get comfy, stay a little bit and forget about silly troubles.

O8) :evilgrin:

[LeftishBrit]

17. Hmm

Well, we all know that the Internet can increase temptation to waste time and procrastinate about disagreeable duties. But 'neurological' damage? I do not know of any evidence that the Internet has any long-term impact on brain functioning. It could - but Carr seems to be leaping from the fact that research shows that the brain is to some extent plastic even in adulthood, and that the Internet is something new, to assume that it must be drastically rewiring our brains. Not a very logical conclusion.

Moreover, distracting stimuli have always been present in our environment, and humans have always had to divide attention, sometimes rapidly. The Internet (and TV before it) have perhaps differed from some earlier forms of distracting stimuli in that the switches of attention need not be accompanied by much physical movement. The Internet and TV could perhaps be realistically blamed for making us more sedentary - but I am less than convinced that they are affecting our attentional capacities in ways that other demands over the ages have not.

Also, there is no recognized disorder called Divided Attention Disorder; it is not even among the obscure disorders mentioned in the DSM. There is of course Attention Deficit Disorder, recognized well before the Internet; but Divided Attention Disorder seems to be a creation of journalists, not neurologists or psychiatrists.

Finally, the Daily Mail is a vile, sensationalist rag, a British equivalent to a cross between the National Enquirer and Rush Limbaugh's talk-show.

None of this is saying that the Internet is an unmitigated blessing, or doesn't create any problems for the individual or society. But sensational journalism, such as that of the Daily Mail, does not help encourages just the sort of rapid and superficial attention-grabbing and lack of 'deep thinking' that is here being attributed to the Internet.