Younis Alsallaj

English 1101

Project #3

As life goes on, people find new things to adapt to. Those new things shape our brain for the future and they become our daily habits. This has nothing to do with the genes passed down, but instead have to do with how we start out as a baby, and what we do from that moment onward as we develop. My topic is about how the Internet has shaped the human brain differently, and how it has molded most of our emotional thoughts, mentality, and behavior. Emotionally, when we are bored, sad, mad, confused, or whatever the case may be, we would turn to Internet to fulfill our hopes to comfort us. Mentally, many people are dependent on the Internet for many things. To some, whenever they need something the Internet is what they would turn to, instead of learning and developing from the environment around them. The Internet changed our behavior pattern, in a way that we would stay home all day and surf the social medias of Facebook, Instagram, or play on their video games online, instead of actually going outside the house to see their friends and interact in a way that is more social.

We have gone from a world of accomplishing tasks that take more movement, to accomplishing those same tasks at the tip of our fingers. Instead of going out shopping and looking around, or going to T-Mobile to pay our phone bill, we can shop online and pay our bills online! We have gone from a world where instead of going outside and interacting with other people of our age and playing sports, we would stay home and play sports games or whatever the case may be. Instead of going to a lounge or a bar to hook up with a girl, some people would even turn to dating sites. This is such a difference in behavior patterns from what we use to do before to survive in this world to what we do now. This makes us as humans lazier, more unsocial, less “experienced”,  and less capable of learning new things. An example of this new behavior pattern that is developing is from an interview with Yousif Alsallaj, “Growing up, I used to play outside with my friends all day long and we would learn new things about each other and the environment around us every day, whereas nowadays I can see the trend is different as kids would rather stay home and play on their iPads, or watch videos.”

Now, I will talk about how emotionally, the internet has led us to be way too comfortable with our lives. Being comfortable isn’t a bad thing, but to turn to technology for that comfort instead of turning to a family member or friend is how it should be done I believe.  These days when people are sad and need something to cheer them up, they would go to an Instagram or Facebook page about sad quotes and for some reason that would make them feel better. When we are bored, why not go to the movie theater or billards with our friends to get rid of that boredom? It is because we have Netflix at home and we have video games to keep us occupied. These emotional patterns definitely shape our mentality, and it will show even more in the generations to come. The Internet is still new, so the damage is not seen yet, but the next generations will show the impact the it has on our abilities and our limits as humans. Jihan Hallaq stated in an interview, “ My little son has a lot of energy, but when I need to calm him down, ill have him sit down on his iPad and watch Youtube, whereas my first few children there wasn’t anything to suck up their energy except taking them outside to play.” This is a perfect example of how the Internet can be a distraction and how it controls our emotional level to a certain degree.

These emotional patterns shape our brains mentally, and it is going to shape the next generations brain even more as they are born with it. So mentally, everyone is dependent on the internet. Be it finding a place to eat, reading a newspaper or article online, needing a question to be answered as soon as possible, everything is right there on your mobile device. Google has so much information and is so reliable, that automatically we gave into it. Google maps, for example, is something many drivers have become dependent on when traveling on the road. According to a source called Intellegence, “internet search activity can provide interesting insight into human behavior.” This basically states that internet search activity helps us with our decisions and our decisions vary from finding a book to read to finding a cool club to go to on the weekends. The Internet holds so much data that almost everything we need or desire is just a search away. To put it short, it is either you are addicted to the Internet or it is just there for you when you need some intel.

The Internet is growing at a rapid pace. With all the information that is already on the Internet, one would think it would stop right? Guess not. The Internet right now is used to create many other new technologies, and as the information is increasing, our minds are taking in that information and soon the world will be very futuristic and all technological, almost like the ones you see in the movies. A few examples are the hoverboard and the apple watch. The hoverboard is something people thought would be seen somewhere in the near future, but look at how fast our technology is growing that it is already here. The apple watch is a watch that is connected to our phones, and something that we can answer phone calls with. 50 years ago does not seem so long ago, but once technology and Internet entered our lives, it grew rapidly and something everyone was a fan of. Just to think that almost 2 to 3 generations ago, people were still using type writers and did not have the privilege of having a smart phone. An example of the Internet growing at a rapid pace, which happened rather recently, “the number of Chrome user tripled to 120 million, from 40 million”(Canberra Times). That was an article back in 2011, so you can imagine the amount of Chrome users as of now.

In conclusion, I believe that the Internet will increase and will have an even bigger impact on our lives. We will see that even more with the next generations to come, as they will be much more knowledgeable with the new technology than we were. I can say myself that I am happy that I wasn’t absorbed into it and I actually had a childhood. My family started using Internet about 5 to 6 years ago, so my family and I aren’t all caught up with it. The Internet is not a bad thing, it is definitely a distraction and an addiction to a degree. I think that parents should at least limit their children to their devices, gaming systems, and so on. For example, I would not buy my child a hoverboard, I would buy him or her a bike. I would encourage my kid to go and play with his or her friend. It’s all about how our mindset is of things and never to get addicted.

Works Cited

• Alsallaj, Yousif. Personal Interview. 5 Dec 2015.
• Hallaq, Jihan. Personal Interview. 5 Dec 2015.
• Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Dec 2015.
• Canberra Times. Web. 8 Dec 2015