Yes, the “internet brain” is real.
Admit it, you’re glued to your phone for the most part of the day. Because same here, I get stuck to almost all of my gadgets since the moment I wake up. Bet almost everyone’s like that, too.
Have you ever gotten this feeling of always wanting to be “in the know” about all of the happenings on the internet, or that constant feeling that always seems to be in between excitement and anxiety? Or have you ever noticed that your patience and focus has somewhat waned a bit after years of being almost always being on the internet?
That so-called phenomenon is called the “Internet brain”. This very term was coined by best-selling author of The Practice of Groundedness, Brad Stulberg, in a Medium article where he talks about this thing that probably almost everyone has been experiencing but doesn’t know how to describe it.
Internet brain:
-Inability to focus for long periods of time.
-Strong desire to “check” something, even when you don’t actually want to.
-Constant feeling of adrenaline somewhere between excitement and anxiety.
-Lack of patience.
-Super hard to focus.https://t.co/UDjvcoc3sA— Brad Stulberg (@BStulberg) November 1, 2022
Essentially, he says, “internet brain results from spending too much time on the internet,” and that the one responsible for it is, obviously the internet itself. Everything that we do on the internet on a daily basis—checking social media, emails, the trends, reading articles, gaming, etc.–is putting a long-lasting effect on our behavior and we aren’t even aware of it.
Or maybe we have, we just didn’t really confront it head on.
So, knowing that this occurrence isn’t really an isolated case, are we still able to reverse the effects of the “Internet brain”? The answer I think, is yes.
How? Well, according to Stulberg himself, is to “get off the internet, or at least cut back on the time you spend there!” Easier said than done, yes. But there are some people who have successfully done it themselves.
Of course, it’s going to take a lot of discipline to lessen one’s time on the Internet, or to find hobbies that aren’t related to any social media platform. But, if you think about it, if the “internet brain” has wired us into all these unhealthy behaviors, how good would it be if we just do things to counter all of them? How good would it be to finally get back on our past habits, such as reading a book, walking outdoors, touching grass on a daily basis, or even focusing on our well-being and mental health without the stress of wanting to maintain a certain image on social media?
Yes, there is a chance for all of us to lessen our time on the Internet, it’s just a matter of discipline, self-control, and self-awareness. We’ll surely reduce all of our activities on the Internet eventually, we’ll all get there.
(Getting rid of the internet in our daily habits could be too taxing of a task, since we all have jobs or homework to do).
Featured photo: Canva
Other stories that you might like:
Tumblr updates its community guidelines, rises from the ashes
6 movies about journalism that capture the importance of press freedom in our society
The Last Dance: DRX beats T1 dramatically to win 2022 League of Legends World Championship
Mythbusting: Why travel to Africa is as safe as travel to Europe and the US
