Video Games & Cognition

This week’s reading focused on our cognitive systems and how they have been altered by the usage of the internet. I appreciated this article the most out of this weeks reading, because although length, it offered an objective analysis of discussions about the internet and its effect on us. It seems sometimes that we hear a lot about how the internet is working against us and I’ve wondered many times if these studies are taking into account our ability to adapt to conditions as humans. Especially after reading the chapter on Luddism, I fear at times that we are critical of the growing process it’s been to learn to use the internet to our advantage. As the article states, the internet has only been available to consumers for 28 years. We are learning how to use the internet to our advantage and it’s important to understand the learning curve that comes with that. 

            After the reading and the different testing that were performed it was clear that many of the mounting suspicions of the internet’s impacts on our minds are real concerns. As Digital Natives it is evident that many of us have a very shallow mode of processing information. This is mostly due to our confidence that the information will be available to us at our beck and call. All we need to do is pick up one of our devices. 

            I think that it’s important to take studies like this and make sure we are mitigating the effects by putting healthier practices into place. For example, we may now have the understanding that “hyperlink” navigation is of no real value to us. So instead we could take time out to research a topic extensively to have real knowledge for it. Wolf and Barzillai discussed how “the shift towards shallow information processing can disrupt the development of deep reading skills”. There is a place for quick answers on questions we need to know, because not all information we seek in the moment is something we need to have long-term knowledge of, the problem comes when we treat all information this way and we have become experts in researching but have little knowledge we can bring to memory about the subjects we are researching. 

            As a parent, one of my arguments with my son is that gaming isn’t good for him. I found the investigate process of expert gamers very interesting as well. Expert gamers showed evidence of better visual working memory performance. The changes in the brains frontal-parietal network were correlated with better attention performance.         

            The internet may facilitate greater multitasking behaviors but I think it’s important for each person to do an examination of their own habits. The internet has many benefits and has brought lots of advancement to our technology and cultures but I do think it is important that as we advance in technology we are also aware of how to use the internet in a way that allows us to maintain autonomy.