Tag: concentration

Young people are losing the ability to concentrate because of the internet, a controversial new study suggests.

Researchers say the digital revolution may be ‘rewiring’ the brains of children and teenagers – making it easier for them multi-task, but making it harder to pay attention for any length of time.

The findings add to the growing concerns that the rise of the internet and the proliferation of electronic gadgets isn’t just changing people’s behaviour, it is also changing the way they think.
Prof David Nicholas at University College London tested the ability of 100 volunteers to answer a series of questions by surfing the internet.

Early results from the study found that 12 to 18 year olds spent less time searching for information before giving their answers than older volunteers.

On average they answered a question after looking at half the number of web pages – and spent only one sixth of the time viewing the information – than their elders.

Teenagers who have grown up with the web were also much better at multitasking – or carrying out several mental jobs at once.
The youngest volunteers – born after 1993 – were also more likely to seek out answers from their friends than use reliable sources of information.

Previous research by Prof Nicholas found that younger people use the internet in a different way to their elders, flitting more between sites and rarely returning to the same web page twice.

‘The really big surprise was that people seemed to be skipping over the virtual landscape,’ he said.

‘They were hopping from sites, looking at one or two pages, going to another site, looking at one or two pages and then going on. Nobody seemed to be staying anywhere for very long.’

Reading time: Prof Dave Nicholas says internet users are skipping over virtual landscapes

The study is due to be featured on a BBC2 documentary The Virtual Revolution on Saturday.

Some psychologists have argued that there is no evidence that the internet is changing our brains – and that young people have always struggled to concentrate.

But others have claimed the internet encourages users to dart between pages instead of concentrating on one source such as a book, the traditional staple of student research.

This new ‘associative’ thinking leaves the majority incapable of ‘linear’ disciplines like reading and writing at length because their minds have been remoulded to function differently.

Documentary presenter and social psychologist Dr Aleks Krotoski said: ‘It seems pretty clear that, for good or ill, the younger generation is being remoulded by the web.

‘Facebook’s feedback loops are revolutionising how they relate. There is empirical evidence now that information overload and associative thinking may be reshaping how they think.

‘For many, this seems to be a bleak prospect – young people bouncing and flitting between a thoughtless, throwaway virtual world.’

Other academics told the programme that younger people are losing the ability to read and study books.

Dr David Runciman, political scientist at Cambridge University,said: ‘What I notice about students from the first day they arrive at university is that they ask nervously, ‘What do we have to read?’

‘When they are told the first thing they have to read is a book, they all now groan, which they didn’t use to do five or 10 years ago.

‘You say, ‘Why are you groaning?’ and they say, ‘It’s a book. How long is it?’ ‘Books are still at the heart of what it means to be educated and to try to educate. The generation of students I teach see books as peripheral.’

Neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield, a professor at Oxford University, told the documentary that the web and social networking sites were ‘infantilising’ children’s minds and detaching them from reality.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1249946/Internet-rewiring-brains-psychologists-warn-thousands-teens-need-mental-health-treatments.html