How is your mind handling the Internet in the 21st century?

 

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Okay I think I finally have a handle on this question: "How Is Your Brain handling the Internet in the 21st century?" But first some background...

A week ago I was watching an interview with psychiatrist Bandy Lee (1.The YouTube interview, 2. Her official bio, 3. Wikipedia article on her) regarding how . Donald Trump (1. His bio on Britannica encyclopedia 2.Wikipedia article on him ) perceives not only the world but his inner life as well. By the end of the interview I was shocked that someone could have such a dark dystopian inner world. It did however make sense when you look at his actions. It is clear that his got some mental condition but that is for others far more learned than I to discuss.

I began to wonder about the human experience as a whole. Who's to say my fundamental way of existing, of processing reality is anything similar to anyone else's. Could it be that the shared humanity of the human race is only an assumption? There is no way for any of us at this point in time to find out whether what is going on in our own head is an experience that it shared. To be clear I am talking about this on an extremely fundamental level. Maybe an analogy will help

 Outwardly they work the same:

Image generated by Ideogram AI

If you take a Microsoft Windows computer and compare it to an iMac by Apple there are many things they do exactly the same. You can browse the Internet, spend money, check with your friends, create artwork and music. On the surface it looks like only certain design choices are different more of a stylistic change than a function change. But if you look at the hardware and the actual code that achieves this it is dramatically different. Literally two different worlds of programming and yet the outward result is very uniform between the two machines. If one didn't know better one could be forgiven for thinking they shared the same "machine experience". If that is true might it not also be true for human beings?

Now, let's bring in to this discussion the Internet. If my conjecture is correct that the underpinning of the human experience can be vastly different, then would not the effects of using the Internet result in a vastly different outcome for the individual?

Another example to illustrate:

I take public transit frequently and of always noticed that people are glued to their cell phones or other media devices. Why is it that I can take it or leave it and others can't. My phone frequently sits in my pocket sometimes for most of the day and if I have no reason to look at it I simply won't. I don't avoid it, I just don't need to check it. Yet I see people all the time scrolling aimlessly or texting pretty much all the time. So is there fundamental reality different. If so we should take this into account.

I firmly believe that a child should have limited access to technology in their early years. Their brain needs to learn how to work for itself. They must develop a sense of time over which things need to occur to be achieved. There problem-solving skills must be started up and if all goes well they consider an issue deeply. Willing to put in the time to find the answer and to deal with a positive as well as a negative outcome.

If they get their hands on technology too soon I fear they become addicted to a feedback loop instead of developing to the fullest there innate faculties. What will this rob them up in their later years? I am not sure whether it's just my own bias creeping in here. The technology may indeed unlock it thereto unexpected benefits. I don't know.

I would sure like to hear from you either here on the blog or on YouTube. This is proven to be a difficult topic to define and research. So do let me know what you think.

Take care Patrick, and here's the companion video which in a very indirect way goes down the same path. It wasn't until I did the video that I was actually able to write this article because it helped me define this topic to a larger degree. So while you watch the video you will see some of my own internal world.

Take care, Patrick.

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