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Is the Internet Making Us Crazy? What the New Research Says - Newsweek and The Daily Beast


Stashed in: Mobile!, Influence!, Teh Internets, Social Media, Brain, Technology, MIT TR, Forever Alone

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: Is the Internet Making Us Crazy? What the New Research Says - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

Worth a re-read:

In the summer of 1996, seven young researchers at MIT blurred the lines between man and computer, living simultaneously in the physical and virtual worlds. They carried keyboards in their pockets, radio-transmitters in their backpacks, and a clip-on screen in front of their eyes. They called themselves “cyborgs”—and they were freaks. But as Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at MIT, points out, “we are all cyborgs now.” This life of continuous connection has come to seem normal, but that’s not the same as saying that it’s healthy or sustainable, as technology—to paraphrase the old line about alcohol—becomes the cause of and solution to of all life’s problems.

"The current incarnation of the Internet—portable, social, accelerated, and all-pervasive—may be making us not just dumber or lonelier but more depressed and anxious, prone to obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit disorders, even outright psychotic. Our digitized minds can scan like those of drug addicts, and normal people are breaking down in sad and seemingly new ways."

Ouch. It hurts because it rings true.

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