The Internet is reshaping our world

Abstract: Through the reflection on the Internet, this paper discusses the changes of the Internet to us from three aspects: attention, reading and writing, and cognitive mode. In order to get more people to pay attention to the Internet and the changes to us from the outside in.

Keywords: Internet attention reading cognitive way

It was a normal morning during the summer vacation of graduate students. I was still sitting at the computer (looking up information on the Internet), thinking about the papers I would submit for the course. QQ popped up a "plum blossom" news, and it opened up to pay attention. Suddenly the browser pops up a message reminding you that there is a new message, and after checking it, it is found to be a spam message. A few seconds later, someone on Weibo commented, clicked on it, and I had a few more people "follow". I was about to continue to conceive the paper, when the phone rang again, and it turned out that there was a text message reminding that "Plum Blossom" was coming. At the same time, the client of Renren kept flashing in the lower right corner of the computer. My train of thought was interrupted again and again, it was close to noon, and I hadn't typed too many words on the computer...

Everything that happened above is probably no stranger to many people who have computers. That's exactly what I'll talk about later. Since the advent of the Internet, when many people are praising this "darling", I have more worries when praising the Internet for greatly improving our productivity. Before, I could read a lot of papers and related books and write a paper, but now sitting in front of the computer, I feel confused and inefficient, and my attention is interrupted again and again (it seems that it is not easy to continue). Before, I could calmly read a good book, driven by the plot of the book, and I was the protagonist in the book, but now with the Internet, I can no longer find the original feeling. Instead of "deep reading", it is more of a "sweep", especially when watching the news and Microblogs. And the way we see the world has changed dramatically with the advent of computers and the Internet.

First, the Internet is changing attention

We are surrounded by network information all the time, QQ chat "replaces" face-to-face communication, ctrl+c&v "replaces" perusal, group buying replaces shopping on the street, blogging and microblogs "replace" letters and books... The Internet, with its powerful power, attracts our attention at the same time, distracts our attention, and it can be said that "he attracts us only to distract us". Attention has become a "scarce resource" in the internet age. Hence the term "attention economy".

[if!supportLists] 1.1 [endif] The brain can be shaped and changed

In the 20th century, while brain science continued to develop, many people still believed that the structure of the human brain would not change. According to this theory, the brain is a bit like a concrete structure, when cast and formed at a young age, it quickly solidifies and hardens to take its final form. However, this view is changing. British biologist J. Miller In a radio series, Z. Young suggested that "there is evidence that our brain cells are indeed "used in and out." 70 years before that, the American psychologist William James wrote in his Principles of Psychology that "neural tissue seems to be endowed with strong plasticity." Through numerous experiments in monkeys, Melzenich has shown that adult primate-like brains are widely malleable. As brain science continues to advance, evidence of brain plasticity continues to strengthen. Neuroscientists use sensitive new brain scanning devices, as well as microelectrodes and other probes, to experiment not only in animals but also in humans, not only to the idea of brain plasticity, but also to the fact that brain plasticity is not limited to the somatic sensory regions in the cerebral cortex that govern touch. Plasticity is universal, and all of our neural circuits, whether they involve touch, vision, hearing, movement, thinking, learning, understanding, or memory, essentially obey the laws of change.

We use our fingers to point at keyboards and mice, look at words, pictures, and videos on computer screens with our eyes, listen to sound cards with our ears, and in addition to smell and taste, the Internet mobilizes all our organs to participate and engage these senses at the same time. No wonder Nietzsche wrote back to a friend in his later years after typing on a spherical printer, saying in a reply letter to a friend that "our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts."

[if !supportLists] 1.2 [endif] The Internet is distracted

Since our brains are malleable, our long-term exposure to computers and the Internet will undoubtedly be affected. How does the Internet, as a technology, change our attention?

Technologies can be broadly divided into four categories. The first category includes plows, sewing needles, and jet fighters, technologies that expand our physical strength, dexterity, and levitation. The second category includes microscopes, magnifying glasses, and these techniques extend our senses and range. The third category includes reservoirs and genetically modified plants, technologies that allow us to transform nature to better serve our needs and desires. The fourth category is intellectual technology, which extends and supports our brain power. It can be seen that computers and the Internet belong to intellectual technology. For the role of technology in the formation of civilization, there are mainly two views of technological determinism and instrumentalism. The former believes that technological progress is an independent force beyond human control. The latter argues that technology is a neutral man-made object, completely subservient to the conscious aspirations of the users of the technology. Both sides also have their own evidence. But it is undeniable that technology dominates and influences our lives with great power. Technology is precisely one of the main ways to show the essence of man.

The Internet has the interactivity, hyperlinks, searchability and multimedia features that bring us numerous benefits. But it is precisely this characteristic that distracts us. Interactivity: It allows us to download information at the same time as we can upload it. Volunteers get together to edit Wikipedia, upload videos and download videos to Youku, follow and be followed by others on Weibo... The increasing use of the Internet has allowed us to invest more time. Hyperlinks: When reading text, you can switch to unfamiliar terms or people or opinions at any time. According to a 1990 survey, researchers asked two groups of subjects to look up a set of documents. One group is found in electronic documents in hypertext form, and the other group is found in paper documents. It turned out that the subjects who used paper documents were significantly better than the other group. Readers of hypertext often "sweep through the page instead of perusing the contents." Retrievable: Memory is the most basic cognitive function. The retrievable Internet allows us to "outsource" our memories and make it easy to find what we need online. However, this also leads to a loss of memory, one will turn to the jumping picture, one will turn to the advertisement next to the web page. Multimedia: It not only provides a large number of articles, but also provides images, sounds and videos, watching so much information will inevitably cause cognitive fatigue, overload information has exceeded the scope of attention.

[if !supportLists]1.3 [endif] The harm caused by the scramble for attention

We seem to have entered an era of "busy survival". Professor Xiao Feng mentioned problems such as attention pollution and distortion, which lead to teenagers becoming addicted to the Internet. We are losing more and more self-control, and the ability to choose information is also losing more and more, and what we see is that others choose the good for us.

Second, the Internet has changed reading

Historically speaking, the essence of language is sound, not text. Symbols, text instead of sounds, that's what happens later. In the deepest sense, the ontological shift of human language occurs twice. The first was the emergence of mosquito-carrying artificial vectors by the generation of written language, and such human language went beyond the stage of speaking based solely on natural media; the second ontological shift occurred recently, marked by the advent of the digitized electronic punishment of texts. When written text is transferred to the Internet, especially the emergence of readers and writers, it is more convenient for us to read books, which can click to turn pages, add bookmarks, highlight paragraphs, and even write signs. People with poor eyesight can also add symbols to words, which seem to bring us the gospel of reading. U.S. online bookstore Amazon said in a report in early 2009 that e-books accounted for 35 percent of their book sales, up significantly from less than 10 percent a year earlier.

However, there are also many voices of doubt. Christime Rosen is a researcher at the Center for Ethical Policy in Washington, D.C. Recently, while reading Nicholas Nickbe, he raised his concern that "when I try to read on the computer for a long time, my eyes rarely have a moment of rest, and my eyes are always jumping around. ...... Follow the internet link and jump straight to Dickens's short story "Magby Forks", knowing that 20 minutes later, I have not yet gone back to read "Nicholas Nick Bay". The calm and focused way of reading is broken, and at the same time, the ability to think deeply is weakened. The change in the way of reading has also brought about a change in the way of writing. "Mobile novels" occupy a major position on the Japanese best-seller list. In 2009, Sina Weibo internal test, turned to a short, concise way of writing into our lives. Instead of the repeated thinking of the context, the writing of one sentence and 140 words lowers the threshold and makes the content more casual.

The Internet/computers have changed the way we perceive

The philosophical impact of scientific or technological change should be of concern to us. Newton's mechanistic theory, let us see the universe as a huge clock, formed the worldview of mechanical determinism. With the development of computers and the Internet, a computationalist way of seeing the world gradually developed.

The multi-window mode of the Internet allows us to mobilize multiple senses at the same time, but also makes our coordination ability continue to be enhanced. This is perhaps not the case with any previous schooling.

IV. Conclusion

According to the 28th Statistical Report on the Development of the Internet in China, as of the first half of 2011, the number of Netizens in China was close to 485 million, and the number of Weibo registered was 195 million. The sharp increase in the number of people has led to many problems of the Internet becoming more serious. Such as: intellectual property issues (such as Google copyright dispute, Han Han and other writers' works dispute), privacy security issues, online information authenticity issues (especially Weibo rumors, such as Jin Yong's "death" incident) and so on. I am not here to "point fingers" about the Internet and its various "noes", but to arouse more people to discuss and think about the relationship between the Internet and us. While the Internet brings us benefits, it quietly enters our brains, changes our thinking, and finding some solution is our way out.

bibliography

1. Nicholas Carr: Shallow, translated by Liu Chunyi, CITIC Publishing House, 2010, pp. 47-48.

2. Li Quanren: "Looking at the World from the Perspective of Computation", Sun Yat-sen University Press, 2009, pp. 190, 191.

3. Xiao Feng: "Attention Problems in the Internet Age".

4. Duan Yongchao: Fragmented Survival, CITIC Publishing House, 2009.

5. China Internet Center: http://www.cnnic.net.cn/.