Abstract
This chapter presents the current debate around the role of the Internet in thinking. It subsequently articulates historical and conceptual faults associated with this debate and describes the symbiotic relationship among technology and humans. The chapter also clarifies what it means to be “smarter” in the age of information and identifies ways in which technology can interact with the human mind to better aid human performance. Finally, the chapter presents the current state of research on the impact of the Internet on processes related to reading, attention, multi-tasking, and decision-making.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ackerman, R., & Goldsmith, M. (2011). Metacognitive regulation of text learning: On screen versus on paper. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 17(1), 18–32.
Ackerman, R., & Lauterman, T. (2012). Taking reading comprehension exams on screen or on paper? A metacognitive analysis of learning texts under time pressure. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(5), 1816–1828. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.04.023.
Alzahabi, R., & Becker, M. (2013). The association between media multitasking, task-switching, and dual-task performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance, 39(5), 1485–1495.
Barr, N., Pennycook, G., Stolz, J. A., & Fugelsang, J. A. (2015). The brain in your pocket: Evidence that smartphones are used to supplant thinking. Computers in Human Behavior, 48, 473–480.
Barron, N. (2015). Words onscreen: The fate of reading in a digital world. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18, 32–42.
Budson, A. E., & Price, B. G. (2005). Memory dysfunction. England Journal of Medicine, 352(7), 692–699.
Carr, N. (2010, May 24). The web shatters focus, rewires brains. Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/2010/05/ff_nicholas_carr
Carr, N. (2011). The shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains. New York: Norton.
CIBER. (2008). Information behavior of the researcher of the future. Retrieved from http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20140614113419/ http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/reppres/gg_final_keynote_11012008.pdf
Coiro, J. (2011). Predicting reading comprehension on the Internet: Contributions of offline reading skills, online reading skills, and prior knowledge. Journal of Literacy Research, 43(4), 352–392.
Cole, M., & Derry, J. (2005). We have met technology and it is us. In R. J. Sternberg & D. D. Preiss (Eds.), Intelligence and technology: The impact of tools on the nature and development of human abilities (pp. 209–228). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Common Sense Media. (2012). Entertainment media diets of children and adolescents may impact learning. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/news/press-releases/entertainment-media-diets-of-children-and-adolescents-may-impact#
Damasio, A. (1999). The feeling of what happens. Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc.
Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain that changes itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science. New York: Viking.
Edge. (2010). How is the Internet changing the way YOU think? Retrieved from http://edge.org/annual-question/how-is-the-internet-changing-the-way-you-think
Greenfield, P. (1972). Oral and written language: The consequences for cognitive development in Africa, the United States and England. Language and Speech, 15, 169–178.
Greenfield, S. (2015). Minds change: How digital technologies are leaving their mark on our brains. New York: Random House.
Greeno, J. (1998). The situativity of knowing, learning, and research. American Psychologist, 53(1), 5–26.
Jabr, F. (2013, April 11). The reading brain in the digital age: The science of paper versus screens. Scientific American. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-screens/
Kellogg, R. T., & Mueller, S. (1993). Performance amplification and process restructuring in computer-based writing. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 39(1), 33–49.
Konnikova, M. (2014, July 16). Being a better online reader. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/being-a-better-online-reader
Lajoie, S. P. (2005). Cognitive tools for the mind: The promises of technology—Cognitive amplifiers or bionic prosthetics? In R. J. Sternberg & D. D. Preiss (Eds.), Intelligence and technology: The impact of tools on the nature and development of human abilities (pp. 87–102). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Liu, Z. (2005). Reading behavior in the digital environment: Changes in reading behavior over the past ten years. Journal of Documentation, 61(6), 700–712.
Mangen, A., Walgermo, B. R., & Brønnick, K. (2013). Reading linear texts on paper versus computer screen: Effects on reading comprehension. International Journal of Educational Research, 58, 61–68. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2012.12.002.
Markowitsch, H. J. (2013). Memory and self: Neuroscientific landscape. ISRN Neuroscience, 13, Article ID 176027. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/176027
Maynard, A. E., Subrahmanyam, K., & Greenfield, P. (2005). Technology and the development of intelligence: From the loom to the computer. In R. J. Sternberg & D. D. Preiss (Eds.), Intelligence and technology: The impact of tools on the nature and development of human abilities (pp. 29–54). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Mesulam, M. (1998). From sensation to cognition. Brain, 121, 1013–1052.
Miller, M. D. (2014). Minds online: Teaching effectively with technology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Myrberg, C., & Wiberg, N. (2015). Screen vs. paper: What is the difference for reading and learning? Insights, 28(2), 49–54. doi:http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.236. http://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.236/
Naughton, J. (2010, August 14). The Internet: Is it changing the way we think? The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/aug/15/internet-brain-neuroscience-debate
Nickerson, R. S. (2005). Technology and cognition amplification. In R. J. Sternberg & D. D. Preiss (Eds.), Intelligence and technology: The impact of tools on the nature and development of human abilities (pp. 3–28). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), 15583–15587.
Perkins, D. N. (1993). Person plus: A distributed view of thinking and learning. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions (pp. 88–110). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Plumridge, N. (2013). Is the internet destroying our attention span? Retrieved from http://psychminds.com/is-the-internet-destroying-our-attentions-span/
Poldrack, R., & Sendak, R. (2004). Introduction to this special issue: The cognitive neuroscience of reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8(3), 199–202.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9, 1–9.
Purcell, K., Rainie, L., Heaps, A., Buchanan, J., Friedrich, L., Jacklin, A., … Zickuhr, K. (2012). How teens do research in the digital world. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Retrieved from, http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/11/01/how-teens-do-research-in-the-digital-world/
Redelmeier, D. A., & Tibshirani, R. J. (1997). Association between cellular-telephone calls and motor vehicle collisions. The New England Journal of Medicine, 336, 453–458.
Rensink, R. A., O’Regan, J., & Clark, J. J. (2000). On the failure to detect changes in scenes across brief interruptions. Visual Cognition, 7(1–3), 127–145.
Rosenwald, M. (2014, April 6). Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/serious-reading-takes-a-hit-from-online-scanning-and-skimming-researchers-say/2014/04/06/088028d2-b5d2-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html
Salomon, G., & Perkins, D. N. (2005). Do technologies make us smarter? Intellectual amplification which, of, and through technology. In R. J. Sternberg & D. D. Preiss (Eds.), Intelligence and technology: The impact of tools on the nature and development of human abilities (pp. 71–86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24–31.
Small, G., & Vorgon, G. (2008). iBrain: Surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind. New York: Harpers.
Smith, E. E., & Kosslyn, S. M. (2007). Cognitive psychology: Mind and brain. New York, NY: Pearson.
Sparrow, B., Liu, J., & Wener, D. M. (2011). Google effects on memory: Cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips. Science, 333, 776–778.
Stafford, T. (2012, April 24). Does the Internet rewire your brain? Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120424-does-the-internet-rewire-brains
Sternberg, R. J., & Preiss, D. D. (2005). Preface. In R. J. Sternberg & D. D. Preiss (Eds.), Intelligence and technology: The impact of tools on the nature and development of human abilities (pp. xiii–xxii). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Strayer, D. L., Drews, F. A., & Johnston, W. A. (2003). Cell phone-induced failures of visual attention during simulated driving. Journal of Experimental Psyhology, 9(1), 23–32.
Watson, L. (2015, May 15). Humans have sorter attention span than goldfish, thanks to smartphones. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11607315/Humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smartphones.html
Wellmon, C. (2012). Why Google isn’t making us stupid or smart. The Hedgehog Review, 2012, 66–80.
Willingham, D. T. (2015). For the love of reading: Engaging students in a lifelong pursuit. American Educator, 39(1), 4–13.
Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and science of the reading brain. New York, NY: Harper.
Wu, M., & Chen, S. C. (2011). Graduate students’ usage of and attitudes towards e-books: Experiences from Taiwan. Program, 45(3), 294–307.
Yarkoni, T., Speer, N., Balota, D., McAvoy, M., & Zacks, J. (2008). Pictures of a thousand words: Investigating the neural mechanisms of reading with extremely rapid event-related fMRI. NeuroImage, 42(2), 973–987.
Zickuhr, K., Rainie, L., Purcell, K., Madden, M., & Brenner, J. (2012). Younger Americans’ reading and library habits. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Athreya, B.H., Mouza, C. (2017). Internet and Thinking. In: Thinking Skills for the Digital Generation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12364-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12364-6_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12363-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12364-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)