"Digital Minds Selling Fast! Yesterdays' Old Thoughts are that of the Past"

"Digital Minds Selling Fast! Yesterdays' Old Thoughts are that of the Past"
April 7, 2018 - by: Ahmad McCray 

This photo is from the site https://coggy.eu/cognition/ where it is represented as intelligence, but how much technological immersion is healthy for the human mind?

Time devoted to devices 

Have you ever felt as though you were addicted to social media? Have you ever gone to a restaurant with friends or family only to face the problem of your battery falling to 5%? Would I be wrong if your next idea would be to find the nearest outlet and campout there for the entirety of your stay? I personally have noticed my inexplicable tendency to check my phone in advance trying to anticipate the next incoming message, picking my phone up, placing it down, picking it up, and placing it down, while all the while it hasn't rung once.

"Isn't that strange?" - Ahmad McCray

Social media first official depute was in 1997, a website called "Six Degrees" introduced the concept of creating a profile and friending other users. "From Six Degrees, the internet moved into the era of blogging and instant messaging." The era today is ruled by Facebook, twitter, and snapchat well known social media outlets worldwide. These communication hubs alone have provided many communicative benefits. I agree that the ability to communicate with a family member in a completely different state is amazing and being able to randomly speak with foreigners to learn their culture and daily way of life that differs so much from yours. Imagine if before dinner you and family removed your shoes and dusted them out as a sign of not bringing the world to the table, yet, it is so common to you and a foreigner finds it offensive because having their shoes on during dinner is a sign of the family bring their days together. That would be a pretty difficult debate to settle, wouldn't it?

Even with the exciting benefits social media invites to people, over consumption and content plague its value. Jacqueline Howard, a writer for CNN, wrote an article titled "Americans devote more than 10 hours a day to screen time, and growing." Howards' biggest point in this article is that as more devices are created in this growing technological age the more people are going to prioritize digital consumption over personal engagements. Howard writes "Too much screen time and other inactive behaviors also have been linked to obesity risk, especially in children." There is factual evidence supporting the claim that children are becoming obese from being to stagnant, that is surely an issue.

                                                                 (Digital Swarm)

Plagued Content

Social media has many age focused variants. Some are dating sites, some are forums for the television community to theorize on what is to come in the next episode of their favorite show, and some are ranting sites where people of all ages can opinionate themselves as freely they desire.

That makes me question...if most or all of these sites can't verify ages then how is vulgar writings or explicit conversations not going to be seen and read by a child or fragile hearted senior. Don't account me for that low-grade referencing. The massive hauling of social media has negatively affected the human psyche there are massive amounts of depression, suicide, violence, political despondence or loathing and more. People are taking in to much of others personal opinions before self accessing the issue themselves, which results in a chain of like-mindedness with no justification of why. With the continuation of time technology will become more prominent and I fear the growing effects of the digital mind.