Zhane.

Reynolds
Mrs. Douglas
11/3/2014
Round Table Essay
The internet, one of the most intriguing programs to operate on Americas most
successful technologies ever made (the computer). As we know everybody uses the worldwide
web to assess different things like shopping, paying their bills, play games, to do academic
research and the best of it all, to use their social media sites. The internet has become peoples allpurpose medium around the world ,or in other words as book writer Nicholas Carr would put it
the Conduit for most information that flows through my eyes ,and ears and into my
mind(Nicholas Carr, The Shallows What the internet is doing to our brains,6).We get on the
internet and browse through all types of information daily not knowing what its actually doing to
our brains like is it negatively influencing and rearranging the way it works or is it or is it having
no effect on our brains at all?

For my first voice I have chosen Nicholas Carr the writer of What the internet is doing to
our brains. In this book he first describes the early development of when technology was
invented and then extends into the modern day technology of computers.Carr even inputs his
personal experience of the internet and how he feels it changed the way his brain worked and
operated .He says and I quote, The way my brain worked seemed to be changing. It was then
that I began worrying about my inability to pay attention to one thing for more than a couple
minutes. He also states some of his own experiences even when I was away from the

computer, I yearned to check email, click links do some googling. In his overall viewpoint in
the book Carr believes that the internet does not change our brains he feels that everything
changes it but the internet does fragment our brains and believes it is a distraction to people.
My second voice is by Hannah Devin, the writer of the Ebsco host article Fear of internet
risk to young brains unfounded. In her article she talks about how there is no evidence in proving
that the moderate use of the internet has no negative effects on teenagers. In the article she uses a
lot of scientific research from scientists and actual studies on this particular subject. The
neuroscientist she uses who conducted the research states that if we want to know how highly
connected the internet is impacting our brains we will need to investigate brain measures and
their relationship to behavior, cognition and wellbeing in a representative sample of the
population (Mills, 1). In summary for her viewpoint, she believes that it has not yet been
enough studies and especially accurate studies to prove that the internet has any effect on young
brains.
My last voice is from Neulie ,Christine, the author of the Ebscohost articleChanging our
minds. In her article she is reflecting on virtue ethics and how the internet may be changing how
people think and behave. She believes that the foundation of virtue ethics is the belief that moral
characters formed through habits, in which she believes that the effect of the internet on peoples
brains is not a scientific problem but a moral one. She says How people choose to use
technology to shape how they think and whether technology will make better people is their
choice.

In conclusion, the internet does bring a lot of different things to the table. It could change
the way we think for the bad or for the better but it can indeed do something to our brains that
can better the future depending on how we respond with it .If it had not been for the internet our
brains wouldnt experience to the intellectual vast modes of thinking that it gives us. The internet
does not change the way we think but, we as people can decide if we want it to change the way
we think so, I feel like the real question is not what the internet is dong to our brains but what are
we going to do with the information it gives us ? Are we going to use it to positively shape the
way we live or use it negatively?
A thought provoking and intellectually courageous account of how the medium of the
internet is changing the way we think now and how the future generations will or will not think.
Few works could be more important (Wolf, 1)

Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. : The shallows, What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains: New York,
W.W. Norton & company 2011.PRINT.

Hannah Devin: Fear of the internet risk to young brains unfounded, Ebscohost article May
22, 2014. the Quote is from :Kathrynn Mills.

Christine, Neulieb: Changing our minds, Ebscohost article December 17, 2010

Quote from Wolf, Maryanne, director of the tufts university center for reading and language
research and the author of Proust and the Squid. Asserted from the book The shallows what
the internet is doing to our brains by Carr, Nicholas, Newyork, W.W.norton& company
2011.print.