Is Computer = I More Stupider?

Dear Readers,

The other night I heard this guy on the radio, (a guest on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, to be precise) talking about how spending a lot of time on the computer affects your brain. He said long amounts of exposure to and interaction with the Internet re-wires your brain and sort of makes you ADD.

And I think I used to write longer, more well-developed things when I was in college and when I didn't spend so much time on the Internet.

Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the computer lately, and so I was just wondering - Gosh, I like goblins. I made tuna-nuna today. Yummers!

What was I saying?

Oh yeah, I remember. The guy on the radio. Yeah.

The guy on the radio said that when you read the news on a computer, it’s different than reading the news in a newspaper… on the Internet, you click on things, and there are bright flashy things, and you change subjects in your mind quickly so that eventually, it changes the anatomy of your brain, because your brain adapts so it can process the stimuli it receives. Um… maybe I’m being unclear, but I don’t have the patience to clarify my thoughts… go ask a brain expert about what I’m saying, if you’re so inclined… a brain expert with a patient mind.

Well, maybe the way Internet-users brains are changing isn’t a bad thing… maybe it’s just different.

But I just read headlines, headlines, headlines, and usually only the first few paragraphs of news articles, and I skim too much, and I’m in a rush to get on to the next thing, and I look at pictures, and I read the captions, and I watch short videos, and I read comments strangers leave on news articles, and I prefer the short comments because they’re short, and I read lots of the comments on You-Tube videos, and sometimes I think of clever comments to leave on news articles or on You-Tube videos or on blog posts, but by the time I get down to the business of actually writing my comments, I think of some other news story I want to read up on, or some other video I want to watch, or some other politician’s name I want to google, or I see some link somewhere that I just have to click on, or I think “Oh, why bother?” and sometimes in my lucid, unplugged moments, the words of Ecclesiastes come to my mind, “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities: all is vanity.”

Like this stupid blog post I’m writing: why are you wasting your time reading it? Don’t you have better things to do? Shouldn’t you be reading the Scriptures, or some classic literature, or working, or spending quality time with loved ones?! Or if you don't have loved ones, shouldn't you be working on getting some loved ones?

Oh yeah, it’s true!

About the computer!

Making me dumber! Less attentive! Less concentrate-able! I can see it! I can feel it in my brain! Great literature sits on my bookshelf unread, a page in my journal goes blank another day, my friends go un-visited, even my prayers get unsaid, all because I can’t seem to muster the willpower to fight against the encroaching Internet-fog in my mind!

Let’s face it. I’ve become Gmork (the werewolf from The Neverending Story)

I am Gmork!

I can see the Nothing coming, and I don’t really like The Nothing, and I know The Nothing is very bad, and The Nothing destroys children’s dreams, but I just join The Nothing’s side anyway because of the dark lullaby The Nothing sings to me! I lay down in my dark cave. My green eyes glow. The mist covers me. I growl to myself, knowing that the racing snails are gone. It is a growl that hides myself from myself. I do not think of the racing snails. I only think of The Nothing. The wind howls and the rocks tumble to the disappearing land, and all I can do is follow Atreyu in an attempt to kill him.

I am Gmork!

Alas!

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa