How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.

The internet is transforming the way the 21 st century humans operate and conduct their
day-to-day activities. today, people use the internet to keep in touch with coworkers and
employs, conduct research, meet strangers, exchange information, hatch conspiracies, search for
bargains among other things. However, the internet manipulates our thoughts and actions making
humans to behave like machines. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay. The web is nothing other than an instrument that individuals
utilize in order to carry out and shape their own character. Since its inception, the internet has
been viewed in a negative dimension. But, this negativity is not created by the internet itself. It is
how people use the web, how they manage their self-presentations on the internet, how they
project themselves to outsiders, how they interpret the behavior of others towards the, and how
they accommodate such thoughts that might or might not turn the web into a dangerous
environment. Constant use of the internet leads to addiction. The addiction arises because it leads
to thoughts and actions being rewritten in our neural system. The internet could be altering more
than just the little information of our day- to- day routine. It could be altering our personality,
biology and rewiring our neural circuits at an alarming rate. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.

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The internet, from total obscurity, leapt into our day-to-day lives. The internet began as
an arcane channel of communication for researchers and academics, but today it sustains almost all human actions one can imagine: from rebellion to research, from sex to shopping (Ward 341).
Now, humans use the internet to keep in touch with coworkers and employs, conduct research,
meet strangers, exchange information, hatch conspiracies, search for bargains and much more
(Wallace 1). Basing on newspaper headlines, individuals who have never visited online
platforms might thing that the internet is populated by folks with bizarre ideas, questionable
motives and psychological disorders and that normal people should tread carefully. Yet, years of
studies on human action and thoughts in various settings reveal that minor changes in the
ecosystem can cause those normal individuals to in a different way. Although individuals think
of themselves as cool- headed, kind-hearted, generous or assertive, they routinely underrate the
power of the environment on their behavior. Although the internet is a relatively new
phenomenon it significantly manipulates our thoughts and action.How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
It is no doubt that humans are creatures of blood and flesh, living in a globe of bytes and
bits – a society that the internet shapes. With a simple swipe of a finger or keystrokes, one can
access instantaneously vast amounts of data (Ward 341). A few more touch of a button and one
can interact with friends thousands of miles away. A few more strokes can completely transition
one to a digital world, transferring their identities to online avatars. Due to its pervasive
manipulation, it is often hard to imagine a society where the internet is absent.
There was an age when encyclopedias acted as the pinnacle of data storage and
communicating with friends faraway demanded a visit to the post office, but such days are far
away from the present. However, the present age of digitally mediated communication,
exploration and information is a new one (Maurer 49). The internet appeared less than two
decades ago and many aspects that define it are still new. For many decades of evolution, social
networks meant small groups of day-to-day interacting individuals and not thousands of friends on Facebook and search of information entailed looking for personally known experts and not
typing keywords into search engines like Google (Neulieb 17). The basic human cognitive
functioning developed in this ecosystem – a very different environment from the current internet
era – and it is most likely it has not transformed in the last two decades. When new technologies
and the old cognitive architecture meet – when the world of bytes and bits collides with the
world of blood and flesh – the internet may become a manipulative stimulus that hijacks the
preexisting cognitive architecture and create novel results (Bavelier 37). How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay. Stimulus related to the
internet effects may be powerful, especially to the memory domain. Studies on trans-active
memory reveal that incoming data is disseminated between both external and internal storage
systems. Individuals may store data in their minds, or offload the role of storing this data to
external devices including books, family, friends or the internet.
The Impact of the Internet on Our Minds
Today, the internet is becoming a global medium, the passage for most of the data that
flows via our ears and eyes and into our minds. The merits of having spontaneous access to such
an unbelievably rich store of data are numerous and they have been duly applauded and
described widely. The silicon memory is an enormous advantage to thinking. However, this
advantage comes with a cost. As Galagan notes, the internet is not just a conduit of data, it
supplies information of thought and also manipulate the thought process (p. 22). The internet
seems to be chipping away our capacity for contemplation and concentration. Today, the human
mind expects to take data the way it is distributed by the internet. The more individuals access
the internet, the more they have to consume data the way the web provides. Those who were
veracious book readers have opted for scanty knowledge that the web disseminates. In addition, the internet has also changed the mental habits of various users. Today, frequent internet users
have lost the desire to concentrate on long online or print articles. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
However, courtesy of the ubiquity of online text, not to underscore the popularity of
cellphone texting, people might be reading more today than they did in the 70s or 80s, when the
TV was the predominant medium of communication (I-MINDS 42). But it is a unique style of
reading and a different way of reading. People’s thoughts and actions are influenced by what
they read and how they read. Phillips worries that the reading style promoted by the internet, a
method that puts ‘immediacy’ and ‘efficiency’ above everything, may weaken the human
capacity to engage deep reading unlike the age of the discovery of the printing press (p. 41).
When people read through the internet, they tend to become simple decoders of data. The ability
of humans to interpret data, make rich cognitive links that form during deep reading and in the
absence of distractions, remains to a large extent disengaged. Reading, unlike speech, is not an
instinctive skill etched into human genes (Neulieb 18). Humans have to teach their minds how to
translate data they see into understandable language. And the technologies or media used in
practicing the reading craft and learning play a crucial part in molding the neural connections
inside the human brain. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
The brain of human beings is almost infinitely ductile. Earlier thinkers argued that the
human mental circuits, the dense linkages formed among the billions of neurons, were almost
fixed by the time one attains maturity (Maurer, 51). However, brain researchers have established
contrary results. Neuroscientists argue that even during adulthood, the human brain is malleable.
Nerve connections routinely disintegrate old circuits and establish new ones. According to
Waltner, Guy and Gilliam, the brain has the power to re-program itself and change the way it
executes its functions (p. 8). As humans continue to use what Daniel Bell, a sociologist, refer to as ‘intellectual
technologies, the instruments that influence human thought rather than their physical abilities,
people inevitably start to take the attributes of these technologies (Nicholas 361). A case in point
is the 14 th century mechanical clock that became commonly used. The mechanical clock
delinked time from human activities and assisted in the creation of an independent globe of
mathematically evaluable sequences (Ward 345). Consequently, time become a crucial reference
point for both thought and action. The methodical ticking of the clock helped in the creation of
the scientific man and scientific mind.How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay. However, it took away something. As Nicholas asserts the
conception of the globe that arose from the far-flung use of timekeeping tools remains an
indigent edition of the previous one since it is anchored on the rejection of direct encounters that
acted as the basis for the previous reality (p. 359). In determining when to work, to eat, to rise, to
sleep, humans stopped listening to their senses and began conforming to the clock. The process
of obeying emerging intellectual tools is reflected in the altering metaphors humans use to
describe themselves. When the clock was invented, humans started thinking of their cognitive as
functioning like the clock works.
Today, in the era of the internet, people have come to view their brains as functioning
like computers (I-MINDS 42). However, neuroscientists argue that the change is much more
than the metaphor. Thanks to the plasticity of the human brain, the conformation takes place at a
biological phase. The web promises to have specific far- reaching consequences on cognition.
The web, a boundlessly powerful computing tool, is subsuming most of the other intellectual
tools that surrounds day- to- day human events. It has become the human clock, map, typewriter,
printing press, telephone, TV, radio and calculator (Waltner, Guy and Gilliam 8). When the
internet absorbs a tool, that tool is re- copied in the web’s image. It injects the content of the medium with blinking ads, hyperlinks and other online gewgaws and it engulfs the material with
the pre-absorbed media content. For example, a new mail may declare its arrival when one is
glancing on a newspaper’s latest headline site. The outcome is to scatter the person’s attention as
well as diffuse his/ concentration (Bavelier, Daphne and Green 38). How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
The Web as a Tool
The colloquialism people kill and not guns is familiar to many. This argument suggests
that individuals are often responsible for their action and that the gun is an instrument used to
execute behavior or an action. Consequently, the web is nothing other than an instrument that
individuals utilize in order to carry out and shape their own character. As earlier argued,
individuals use to carry out different actions across diverse types of web arena (Maurer 49). The
rationality as to why and how individuals utilize diverse web arenas is varied and as wide as the
number of various types of web pages available. People have frequently used instruments for
their actions and behaviors. To put it in simple terms, they are creators and adaptors of tool use.
Several research in the field of social psychology reveal this argument, especially in as far as
social behavior is concerned. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay. An experiment carried out to evaluate how participants perceived
aggression in the when various social cues were present revealed that when the tools were
sporting instruments for instance shuttlecock, respondents felt less angry as compared to when
the tool was a gun (Galagan 23). This become a turning point in psychology in which humans are
perceived as interactors with their ecosystems and these ecosystems provide stimuli and cues that
produce certain feelings and thoughts which could result in a particular action. Although the
respondents felt more aggressive when a gun is presented to them, the gun did not produce the
action. Instead, it was how the respondent’s assigned meaning to this cue and how they thought

the gun should make them feel depending on social norms and a mixture of previous
experiences. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
Going back to the web as a tool, a significant portion of the coverage on traditional media
depicts the internet as a negative platform. Positive results are rarely reported regarding the use
of the internet, for the purposes of filling our thoughts with the risks and nefarious intention of
the people who we may encounter on the web. This negativity is not created by the internet itself.
It is how people use the web, how they manage their self-presentations on the internet, how they
project themselves to outsiders, how they interpret the behavior of others towards the, and how
they accommodate such thoughts that might or might not turn the web into a dangerous
environment (Phillips 41). The web is just a tool that people have adapted and adopted in order
to meet their self-presentation and interaction requirements. It does not influence people’s action.
The internet does not make human beings to create an alter persona or ego, or
misrepresent themselves with nefarious intention. Human beings choose their thoughts and
actions. They may be abiding by external cues by reacting in what they view as the wanted or
desired manner, but in the end, they select their own thought and action, either offline or on the
web (Wegner Daniel and Adrian 59). Ward. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay. However, not all actions are influenced by
environmental stimuli or external cues. Also, internal cues have a role to play, particularly
regarding how humans interpret their thoughts, psychological arousal or emotions experienced in
reaction to a specific online stimulus (Nicholas 357). Therefore, the internet in itself is not just
another instrument applied in a chosen behavioral response. It may allow human beings to do
things that, otherwise, they are unable to do them in the physical world. For example, the web
enables an individual in one corner of the globe to connect to hundreds of individuals with
similar interests across the globe, but the internet does not make these individuals to connect. Regrettably, there is a good deal of negativity around how individuals portray themselves across
different web arenas. Consequently, it can be argued that the internet helps the execution of
varied and a wide array of individual thoughts and actions (Wallace 2). How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
Ethics for the Internet Era
Will perpetual exposure to the internet destroy people’s action and thought? Or will it
convert humans into machines which can consume massive data over the day, but unable to
understand it? Are students in college truly learning if they are using laptops to take notes, but
keep email and Facebook windows simultaneously open and also engaging in clandestinely
texting on their smart phones? It is no surprise that teenagers are addicted to their devices. One
can be driving with one hand, and using the other to text. At least we have begun to notice the
issue. Literatures on the topic how the internet manipulates our thoughts and action are almost
becoming a genre. Nicholas writes that when he uses his technology devices, he frequently get a
disturbing feeling that something has been affecting his brain, re-programing his memory and
re-mapping his neural circuit (p. 359). Undoubtedly, the internet could be altering more than just
the little information of our day- to- day routine. It could be altering our personality, biology and
rewiring our neural circuits at an alarming rate. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay. It should come as a surprise that a habit like
frequent internet use might alter us at a frightening rate, perhaps even ruin the ability for
contemplative, sustained focus that individuals once presumed. The argument that thoughts
create action, which consequently shapes moral behavior, is the genesis of ethics and has been so
since the Greek period and the era of Catholicism (Bavelier, Daphne and Green 37 -38).
Repeating actions on a daily basis – surfing the internet – form people into the sought of
individuals that are distracted dilettantes (Phillips 42). These thoughts and actions even rewrite
our neural system. For example, if one lies continuously, the neural system will adapt. It will evolve into a lying brain complete with additional white matter in its prefrontal cortex in order
to support the additional work of deception. However, online ethicists argue that this ability for
alteration is a cause of hope or dismay. It is acknowledged that vital section of behavior
formation occur at the level of brain rewiring, where individuals have no conscious, direct
control (Neulieb 16). An individual cannot desire to become generous and become one by a
simple will. But individuals have the capability to choose the thoughts and actions that incredibly
cause neural rewiring. Turning a PC on or off is a voluntary action. The alteration may be slow at
times, but it takes place. Consequently, there is no reason as to why people have to sit passively
and helplessly as the internet rewires our brains in its own impersonal, fractal image. What kind
of practice is required in order to resist the breaking up attention, memory erosion and countless
of other impacts of day-to- day bombardment with large amounts of data, is a very difficult issue.
Neulieb writes that it is critical not to trivialize will – weakening, mind – numbing force that the
attack of online stimuli can have. Like eve under the tree of knowledge, human beings have a
natural desire to be inundated by neural stimuli, impressions and information (p. 17). The web is
the perfect tool for entertaining these desires. And because the tool is new, there are no pre-
existing moral principles on how to utilize it well, like the maxims that define our behavior when
dealing with ethical quandaries that have been for ages. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.

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The Internet and the Rewired Brain
Being a wizard at mining a stream of information from the internet or pulling data from
the cloud can be useful, but this can grow into a negative habit that obstructs actual learning.
Nicholas warns that the web is not only turning humans into superficial creatures, but it is also
impacting on their learning abilities (p. 362). The constant interruptions afforded by the web fill
up our immediate memory with trash those crowds out data that our neural system should be moving to long term memory. Galagan warns that one cannot build knowledge when he/she
relies on the web to think for him/her. Daniel Goleman supports this argument. He asserts that it
is important to pay attention in an era where power to focus is under attack. Attention is a crucial
component to a successful life (Galagan 23). How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
Although the society has welcomed the ability of the internet to find data and as a result
keep our neural system less cluttered, investigators wan that over- dependence on the web for
data impedes the creation of real knowledge (Waltner, Lance, Guy and Allen 8). Research on
cognitive science argues that the significance of knowing real facts as opposed to finding them
on Google is crucial towards the process of knowledge creation. Wegner, Daniel and Adrian
point out that information from the previous three decades leads to a conclusion that knowledge
can challenged scientifically and that thinking demands adequate knowledge of fact (p. 60). The
very crucial processes that instructors worry about – critical thinking actions such as problem
solving and reasoning – are closely interconnected with real knowledge that humans store in
their long term memory. Attrill asserts that even the most advanced internet literacy skills do not
help workers and students to navigate the society if they do not have a wide array of knowledge
regarding how the society operates (p. 12). The internet seems to be a credible source of
information, but sometimes, it is a hoax created by individuals with ulterior to hoodwink the
public. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
Today, the key concern that surrounds learning is what is the value of online education
without knowledge? Undoubtedly, today students and the employees of tomorrow will require to
collaborate, to evaluate and to innovate, to mention the three crucial digital literacy skills for the
21 st century enthusiasts (Neulieb 21). However, such skills cannot be delinked from the
knowledge that produces them. In order to be innovative, one needs to contribute to existing knowledge. In order to collaborate, one needs to know the pre-existing knowledge. And in order
to evaluate, one needs to compare new data against existing knowledge. It is worth noting that
the internet era has produced a totally new mode of human intelligence. Today, humans write
and think with world-wide audiences and even gather awareness of the society around them
(Maurer 51). It is no doubt that the 21 st century technology is making humans better connected,
smarter at an individual level or society at large. The intelligence of individuals improves when
they work in tandem with the new technology (Wallace 3).
Is the Internet Frying our Cognitive Abilities?
Texting, twitter, or email have become new sources of addiction in the 21 st century.
Today, most teenagers find it hard to ignore an incoming text message or email. The inability to
suppress the urge to read an incoming text or email is due to dopamine (Nicholas 362). This is a
crucial aspect of the brain that controls brain functions such as moving, thinking, mood, sleeping,
motivation, reward and motivation. This hormone controls the pleasure system of the human
brain and it is responsible for feeling of pleasure, enjoyment and motivates behavior like sex and
food. Dopamine causes individuals to desire, seek out, search or want. The seeking system of
dopamine motivates individuals to learn, survive in the world. In the same regard, dopamine
enables individuals to develop seeking out behavior and this is what compels one to instantly
read an email or text message. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
Today, many people open multiple browser tabs while online. In addition, some engage
in texting and online chatting or keeping an eye of the TV concurrently. Given the ever
increasing array of internet interruptions available, there is a general trend towards multitasking.
Regrettably, neuroscientists argue that the brain was not designed for these distractions (Attrill
13). The consequences of overloading our attention leaves us less productive and with foggy brains. The human ability to execute complicate tasks such as reasoning and reading lies in the
short term memory part of the brain. Also known as the working memory, short term memory,
cognitive and attention function concurrently during the process of manipulating data.
As more workplaces shift to screen based labor, the human brain is exposed to human
readable web for about 8 hours each day (Ward 347). Outside the workstation, the human brain
continues to interact with digital technologies almost nonstop. Humans use the internet to
purchase a subway ticket, to watch TV, to interact with friends and relatives among others
aspects. What is the impact of these activities on our thoughts and action? It is a query that either
induces fear or excites optimism, according to where an individual fall in as far as technophilia
spectrum is concerned (Maurer 49). Of course, there is always a down side to constant use of
the internet. However, some neuroscientists are not alarmed about the dangers of constant
internet interaction. Phillips believes that where brain circuits are transmitted over the web, it is
possible for all human beings to communicate wirelessly (p. 39). So, why the skepticism, maybe
the critics to use of the impact of the internet on our thoughts and action will be proved correct as
such a new era of universal wisdom and intellectual discovery will spring up. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay.
The internet influences our ability to read. Today, people cannot complete reading an
online newspaper. The internet is replacing the print media and it have become a crucial aspect
of that drives the acquisition of knowledge and set limits for our thoughts and action. Nicholas
concludes that the human race risks being converted into ‘pancake individuals’ – distributed
wide and thin as they link up with that wide network of data available by a single swipe or touch
of a button. The emotions that emerged from constant use of the internet disassemble the mind.
Human actions and thoughts are scripted following algorithm steps. The internet has converted
people into machine like creatures, turning human behavior into a machine. That is the significance of the dark prophecy by Wallace, that as humans constantly rely on the internet in
order to mediate their understanding of their environment, their intelligence is turned into
unrealistic intelligence (p. 5).

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In conclusion, there is no doubt that the internet is one of the most significant inventions
of the 21 st century. The 21 st century entirely relies on the internet in order to execute several
functions: from rebellion to research, from sex to shopping. However, as argued in this research
paper, continuous dependence on the internet has the ability to alter our thoughts and action. The
web is nothing other than an instrument that individuals utilize in order to carry out and shape
their own character. Since its inception, the internet has been viewed in a negative dimension.
But, this negativity is not created by the internet itself. It is how people use the web, how they
manage their self-presentations on the internet, how they project themselves to outsiders, how
they interpret the behavior of others towards the, and how they accommodate such thoughts that
might or might not turn the web into a dangerous environment. How Internet Manipulates Our Thoughts and Action Essay. Constant use of the internet leads
to addiction. The addiction arises because it leads to thoughts and actions being rewritten in our
neural system. The internet could be altering more than just the little information of our day- to-
day routine. It could be altering our personality, biology and rewiring our neural circuits at an
alarming rate. People’s thoughts and actions are influenced by what they read and how they read.
When people read through the internet, they tend to become simple decoders of data. The ability
of humans to interpret data, make rich cognitive links that form during deep reading and in the
absence of distractions, remains to a large extent disengaged. The emotions that emerged from
constant use of the internet disassemble the mind. It is no doubt that the internet has converted
people into machine like creatures, turning human behavior into a machine.

Works Cited

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