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Sandy Pennington

Southern New Hampshire University

I. Problem Statement

Technology largely has a negative influence on the cognitive ability of the individuals. Such negative impacts are particularly evident among the children and manifest themselves in form of individuals seemingly having a short memory, depicting a slowed form of mental development, having a poor social life and being highly vulnerable to losing information.

Nowadays, the students have become overwhelming over-reliant on the internet for research and other non-academic related tasks. Consequently, their cognitive development has been hampered. If this continues, we are likely to have a future where the children have a short memory, have a slowed development and lack social touch with their surroundings. Policy makers and the teaching personnel ought to look for sustainable strategies that can be implemented to help in alleviating such disastrous consequences among our children.

In line with short memory impact, students have a tendency of searching for solutions to day to day problems as means to save on time. However, prolonged dependency on the internet to find academic solutions consequently makes their memory depreciate. Usually, one’s ability to remember is firmly grounded on an in-depth understanding of the subject matter. This is however not the case when it comes to the use of technology as learners hardly contemplate and get to the finer details of the discussions. The effect of this is that the memory is ever short lived and they have to keep referring to the same when any need arises in the future. Short lived memory is closely linked to information being collected and stored temporarily in the memory.

As the children get used to using the internet and other electronic media, they lose touch with the surroundings. Such is the case that it even becomes hard for them to be connected to social life right from the early stages of their development resulting to a slow development. It becomes even problematic for these children to have a mastery of language at their tender ages. This is what is supposed to take place usually at the early phases of a children development probably between the ages of two up to eight years. Use of technology therefore means that the children end up being under-trained by their peers and parents since most of the time is spent playing with the electronic equipment.

Apart from that, the initiation of the use of social media alters the manner in which people related to each other. Poor social lifestyles have been reported for the people who are addicted to the use of social media. Nowadays, there has been and continuous increase in the number of people using 2.0 web applications such as twitter, Instagram and Facebook where there is an incessant exchange of verbal conversations. There are many cases where the social media users find themselves engaged in solo conversations and as time goes by, they get drifted away from the real social situations (Loh et al., 2016). This may somewhat provide an explanation as to why there are is a crop of many young people who find difficulties expressing themselves in the public arena. The above is a real challenges especially for the young people as it is an indicator of cognitive development problems. Generally, verbal conversations are encouraged as the help in proper grasping of subjects as opposed to just reading and memorizing concepts.

Finally, excessive use of technology leaded to a loss of information tracking. As they young people get online to find solutions to academic problems, they come across an array of sites bearing the same information as typed in the key words during a given search. The general perception is that virtually any form of information can be located online just by a click of a button. Unfortunately, some of the sources are not reliable; they keep changing and some may not contain the relevant information as per the subject matter yet the youth keep over-depending the internet as a form of external medium for storing information. Unlike publications that contain information that has been verified and peer reviewed, the internet cannot be fully trusted for provision of accurate data. Development of extra confidence on the internet is as such disastrous to the cognitive development of individuals.

Initial Research Questions

1. How does the Internet affect cognition development in children?

2. What can be done to reshape the overdependence of the Internet for information search in a bid to improve human cognition?

3. What strategies can the tutors use to prevent overdependence on the Internet by students?

II. Contemporary Relevance

Regarding the contribution of technology to short memory, the theory explored gives highlight on how social memory should be better understood in this era of new media. Drawing from classic sociological perspective’s interpretation of social memory as the form of memory that s enacted through ritual, language art and other avenues like institutions, the author contrasts it with present day technologies that compel us into rethinking such past experiences where memory was created by sharing of stories. Within the digital age, we have a system where information keeps being updated instantly, something that is made possible through transfer functions besides worldwide interconnections into the global network. The past memory is portrayed as being grounded on storytelling and increased capacity while the digital memory is founded on fleeting individual memory. There is a sharp contrast between individual and collective memory. In a nut shell, this theory depicts media as having a memory that is in motion.

Colmar and Double (2017), emphasizes on the importance of a working memory as a solution to the overdependence on technology. The two outline a number of interventions that are not limited to conventional methods but also incorporates technological interventions. This is an evidence based kind of research; they have utilized evidence in bringing to our understanding of the relative effectiveness of classroom using computerized working memory interventions. I support this kind of approach as it mixes both technology and classroom approaches. The intervention has also been associated with sustainability and bringing about positive changes.

III. Interpretation of Research Findings

The research by Colmar and Double (2017), is instrumental to the research questions especially when we consider the strategies that we can use to curb the negative impacts of technology to the cognitive development of the children. For instance, their study answers to the discussion of whether we can use technology in influencing the working memory typical in a classroom setup. Furthermore, it provides an array of other strategies that can help in proving the efficacy of the interventions that can be utilized.

Van der Roest et al (2017) work elaborated on some of the technologies that have been used in supporting memory. This form of research is important since it brings into our focus the proven strategies that have been applied there before. The authors therefore tend to suggest that with an increasing research in areas of memory loss interventions, for example, in people suffering from dementia. Technology that has already been used is evaluated and thus this provides a good platform from which proper recommendations can be made based on an in depth analysis of the strengths and limitations of each device.

In their research, Nittrouer et al also bring to our attention that technology has both positive and negative impacts. For example, through cochlea implants, the cognitive ability of children with hearing problems is improved. This therefore helps this study in that we are able to look at the issue from a broad perspective. Besides, it helps in answering our first question about the role of the internet on cognitive development.

The last research considered for this work was that done by Pak et al. (2017) regarding the impact of individual differences in working memory among the older adults particularly on performance with different degrees of automated technology. The study offers an explanation as to why we see older adults being over-reliant on automation in age-related disciplines more so when we consider working memory. The findings from that study showed that the older individuals performed poorly in their tasks at any instance when the automation was incorrect irrespective of their memory status. Over the years, use of technology has been advocated fro since automation brings about higher efficiency, increases speed and diligence brought about by the machines. However, the fact that incorrectly done automation led to a decline in productivity implies that automation ought to be designed for only the users with emphasis being put on the quantity the users can take and the accuracy an innovation can bring. The relationship between this study and my study come through the fact that technology is utilized in sending assistive signals to the brains in an attempt to boost the memory. With regard to the current study, this research helped me to go an extra mile into determining the accuracy and the amount of technology that is deployed when establishing its impact on the human memory. After all, through this we are able to take cognizant of the manner in which the human memory works with respect to technology.

IV. Methodological Principles:

Both qualitative and quantitative methods will be used in the current study and together they will form what is referred to as triangulation. Relevant techniques will then be used under each research method. For the quantitative method, questionnaires will be used in gathering the relevant data while for the qualitative method, Delphi study will been used. The two methods are ideal for the current study as they will help in providing the data required in developing and eventual rollover of an ideal intervention that will be established. Ideally, the data that will be collected from each of the techniques will help in answering the different research questions presented once analyzed. This is a social research and thus I expect the methods to complement each other. In so doing, the data collected for the current research is will be credible since its validity is enhanced through the application of standard methods used in sampling, design and administration of the questionnaires and the correct Delphi Study Procedures.

V. Conclusion

As was indicated in the problem statement part, present day students have become overwhelming over-reliant on the internet for research and other non-academic related tasks, therefore, hampering their cognitive. This needs to be corrected since if it persists, we are likely to have a future where the children have a short memory, have a slowed development and lack social touch with their surroundings. I hope with adequate research and development of solutions to the negative impacts of technology to the memory, the policy makers and the teaching personnel will find sustainable strategies that can be implemented to help in alleviating such disastrous consequences among our children. Most importantly, I implementation of outcomes of the research will see the technologies being implemented accurately and in the right amounts.

References

Colmar, S., & Double, K. (2017). Working Memory Interventions with Children: Classrooms or Computers? Journal of Psychologists and Counselors in Schools, 27(2), 264-277.

Loh, K. K., & Kanai, R. (2016). How has the Internet reshaped human cognition?. The Neuroscientist, 22(5), 506-520.

Nittrouer, S., Caldwell-Tarr, A., Low, K. E., & Lowenstein, J. H. (2017). Verbal Working Memory in Children with Cochlear Implants. Journal of Speech, Language, And Hearing Research, 60(11), 3342-3364.

Pak, R., McLaughlin, A. C., Leidheiser, W., &Rovira, E. (2017). The effect of individual differences in working memory in older adults on performance with different degrees of automated technology. Ergonomics, 60(4), 518-532. doi:10.1080/00140139.2016.1189599

Van der Roest, H. G., Wenborn, J., Pastink, C., Dröes, R., &Orrell, M. (2017). Assistive technology for memory support in dementia. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 6CD009627. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD009627.pub2