Alexandra Bellerose Argument& Persuasion
December 15, 2010 ProfessorDiDomenico
Research Paper
AsI am elbow deep in water washing dishes from the feast that was Thanksgivingdinner, I hear my twelve-year-old cousin call my name. “Alex!” he says, “will you playMonopoly with me?” I jump at thechance to prevent my fingers from getting any more prune-like and reply with anenthusiastic, “Sure!” As my cousinleads me into the living room I expect to see the board game set up on thefloor waiting for us. However, hedoes not have the familiar monopoly board, money or playing pieces ready. Instead, I sit next to my cousin on thecouch as he retrieves his iPad and asks me if I’m ready to begin.
Formany children who are like my younger cousin, technology is everywhere. They were brought up surfing theInternet and texting from smartphones at ages that seem unfathomable for anyoneof an older generation. Thechildren from this age group have become known as the “iGeneration” due totheir constant connection to digital technology. Their dependence on technology has become so great thatpeople from other age groups find it difficult to relate to these youngtechnology gurus. Our owngeneration, Generation Y, has also become increasingly dependent on the digitaltechnologies available to us. Weclaim that the Internet has made our lives so much easier, that once tedioustasks can now be completed at warp speed, and unmanageable to-do lists havebecome less stressful because we have learned to multitask. These assertions may seem to be likegifts from the digital gods, but the evolution of the nation’s digitaldependence comes with several negative side effects. Society’s communication skills are decreasing, our abilityto concentrate is slowly diminishing, and the human physiological makeup ischanging. The constantconnectivity that people now experience has been proven to actually alter andrewire the human brain. Bysubmitting to an entirely digital age, people are subjecting themselves to manynegative internal changes that could rework the brain in a way that cannot bereversed. It is my belief thatsociety as a whole should make conscious decisions to reduce the dependence ontechnology in a effort to combat the harmful effects that have come to definethe current generations.
Overthe last few decades, technology has developed into one of the most dominantaspects of daily life. From emailto text messaging, Skype to Facebook, digital technology has become the primarymean of communication across all generations. Generation Y, otherwise known as those born and raisedaround the change of the millennium, was the first generation to be raised witha significant amount of digital technology in daily life. Today, the students in this generationare more connected then ever before. Go to any college campus and the students will be looking at several webpages on a Macbook while texting on a Blackberry and listening to an iPod. Those brought up with developingtechnology have now become constantly connected and they struggle daily tosever the tie.
Ina society that prides itself on efficiency and high levels of productivity, thenecessity to be connected to digital technology is growing exponentially. On average, Americans use the Internetabout three hours a day (Markoff 1). When combined with texting and several other forms of technology, theaverage eighteen-year-old spends a little over twenty hours a day connected tothe cyber world (Rosen 9). Peoplein the high school and college age groups have an overwhelming need to alwaysbe in touch with what is going on externally. For them, everything is about information exchange andefficiency. There is little to nopersonal communication or emotional involvement for people who have that desireto always be wired. According toSherry Turkle, a professor of the Social Sciences and Technology at MIT, thetypical college student only wants to exchange information, nothing more. She states, “What I’m seeing is ageneration that says consistently, ‘I would rather text than make a telephonecall.’ Why? It’s less risky. I can just get the information outthere. I don’t have to get allinvolved; it’s more efficient” (“Digital Nation”). Information has become the only goal for most people ofGeneration Y. They want to searchfor and find simple data as quickly as possible without investing unnecessarytime or energy.
These changes havebecome prevalent not only among brilliant college and high school students withoverbooked daily calendars, but with the younger middle and elementary schoolstudents as well. Theseyoungsters, those students like my twelve-year-old cousin, are now beingreferred to as the iGeneration. Their most definitive feature is the high level of significance that theInternet has had in their lives from the beginning. These children were born with technology, mastering its useat very early ages and the amounts of technological dependence are even greaterthan that of their older siblings or relatives, those of Generation Y (Rosen8). These children are alsoconstantly connected to digital media even though they are not completing acollege thesis or an important work presentation; their purposes are mostlysocial. For this age group, the5-10 hours a day they spendwith technology are used to connect with friends and classmates (Rosen 9). They are no longer interested intangible toys or games because their desires lie in the virtual worlds oftechnology.
The drastic shiftin technological advances has led to major changes in many educational systems. Turkle again notices that this trendcauses changes in her students’ learning styles and studying skills. “They [the students] need to bestimulated in ways that they didn’t need to be stimulated before” (“DigitalNation”). Many schools across thenation are submitting to the digital world by implementing more technology inthe classroom such as laptops for students, assignments that are completed onthe Internet, and eBooks instead of standard textbooks (“Digital Nation”). This growing trend only reiterates thepoint that technology has fully encroached every aspect of daily life and thateach generation becomes more dependent on it.
Ever sincetechnology became such an integral part of daily life, people believed thatthey acquired new skills as a result of their constant connection. Multitasking is usually cited as apositive effect of being wired 24/7 because it seems to promote higher levelsof efficiency and productivity. Highschool and college students are very guilty of relying on multitasking in orderto function on a regular basis. Itis very common to see a student writing a paper while having multiple web pagesopen and texting friends at the same time. One student, a junior in college, was asked about histypical multitasking habits while getting work done. He replied, “I’m pretty much constantly texting and wheneverI study I have my laptop out and I’m listening to music, I’m watching a YouTubevideo, I’m checking my email non-stop, refreshing the page, I’m on Facebook,Facebook chat…so that I can always stay connected” (“Digital Nation”). This student was one of several askedto participate in a multitasking analysis conducted by Professor Clifford Nassat Stanford University. This studyput together several tests that involved completing easy tasks, such asidentifying a number as even or odd, while combating numerousdistractions. The test subjectswere college students who prided themselves at being extremely efficient becausethey excelled at multitasking. However, the test results showed that they performed very poorly doingsimple tasks and that the tasks were completed much slower than normal (“DigitalNation”). This goes to show thatmultitasking is not as productive as people once thought.
Multitasking hasbecome the coveted skill that any student or professional wants to master. Nevertheless, the psychological studyconducted at Stanford proved that multitasking is making people less productiveand accurate (“Digital Nation”). Our inner desire for vast amounts of information has actually backfiredand changed the way our brains function. By multitasking, we sell ourselves short. According to Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik,
…the deluge of multi-channel signals has produced an array ofconcentration-related problems, including lost productivity, cognitiveoverload, and a wearying diminishment in our ability to retain the veryinformation we consume with such voraciousness. The irony is that one of the fundamental promises ofinformation technology – the radical improvement in the efficiency of ourinteractions with one another – is being undermined by the technology’senormous capacity to overwhelm us with information and thus short-circuit ourneed to concentrate. (Lornic 1)
We like to think that our brainscan be flexible to these informational overloads. The adaptability of the brain has been studied for decadesand it has been shown to be very plastic, which is its ability to rewire itselfand change based on behavior and experience (Carr 31). However, the cognitive overload thatresults from constant digital use is becoming too much for the brain tohandle. Further neurologicalstudies show that the continual interruptions that one faces when dealing withmultiple technologies go beyond the flexible capabilities of the brain (Lornic3). Society must decide if multitaskingis actually beneficial. Ifmultitasking actually makes us slower at accomplishing simple tasks whiledecreasing accuracy, it doesn’t seem worth it. Taking the time to precisely finish fewer tasks is, inreality, more productive than haphazardly completing twice as many items.
Notonly does the brain sort through the countless amounts of information itreceives, it actually rewires itself to deal with the new technologies. Dr. Gary Small is a neuroscientist andprofessor of psychiatry at UCLA. He conducted the first study to thoroughly analyze the specific changesthat the brain undergoes when adjusting to Internet use (Carr 120). He scanned the brains of avid Internetusers and Internet novices. Dr.Small found that those who frequently web surfed had broader brain activitythan the novices. He then had thenovices spend one hour online for the next five days and scanned their brainsagain at the end of the time period. The dormant areas of the brain that existed prior to the more frequentInternet use were much more active once scanned a second time (Carr 121). Small’s experiment shed some light onthe extent of alterations that the brain goes through when using technology. He found that those who read web pageshave more brain activity in the areas associated with quick decision-making andsimple problem solving while those who read books have activity in regionsconnected to language, memory, and visual processing (Carr 122). It appeared that the skills wepossessed for deep thought, consideration, elaboration, complex language, andmemorization are being replaced by effortless, monotonous abilities. At the end of his experiment, Dr. Smallmade several very significant conclusions,
The current explosion of digital technology not only is changing theway we live and communicate but is rapidly and profoundly altering ourbrains. The daily use ofcomputers, smartphones, search engines, and other such tools stimulates braincell alteration and neurotransmitter release, gradually strengthening newneural pathways in our brains while weakening old ones. If our brains are so sensitive to justan hour a day of computer exposure, what happens when we spend more time[online]? (Carr 120)
These experimental conclusions werealso applied to the minds of younger Internet and technology users. When speaking with those studyingtechnological implications, Dr. Small worried that constant connectivity wouldhave negative effects on those who frequently used the Internet at earlyages. When talking about youngergenerations he said, “You have young people whose brains are not fullydeveloped, so how a young person chooses to spend their time will have aprofound effect on what their brain will be like for the rest of their lives” (“DigitalNation”). These valid statementsconcern many who study technology.
Oneof the most interesting findings about those who frequently use the Internet isthat they actually fear having to function without it. Solutions Research Group conducted asurvey of those who are constantly surrounded by technology to see if theyshowed symptoms of what has become known as disconnect anxiety. This term refers to people who sufferincreased levels of anxiety when separated from a cell phone or theInternet. The survey found that 27percent experiences high disconnect anxiety, while 41 percent of the populationundergoes the malady less frequently. The study also found that the levels of anxiety vary based on age. Older generational sufferers are moreanxious about cutoffs from work while younger people tend to become moreanxious when they are isolated from their peers (Gitlin 1). As it turns out, the high levels ofconnectivity in our society have manifest themselves in a new social syndrome.
Thisfear of disconnect from the digital world has caused our society to lose touchwith many of the skills we had mastered. People no longer desire to communicate face-to-face on an emotionallevel because their time is spent facing a screen. The time devoted to family, proper socialization, and evenhealthy living habits such as sleep are given lower priorities in daily life(Markoff 2). Society as a wholeseems to be less friendly and sociable due to the consistent connection todigital devices. It is much lesslikely to have a conversation with a stranger on an airplane or at the grocerystore because most people have their eyes glued to a digital device. There is a new disconnect among humansdue to the constant connection to technology. This technological evolution has also manifested itself inour recreation and education. Byrewiring our brains to constantly multitask, we have weakened our abilities toconcentrate and think deeply and creatively (Carr 140). Educators like Sherry Turkle see thattheir students’ learning skills have changed since technology saturated theirlives. As she says, “At MIT, Iteach the most brilliant students in the world. But they have done themselves a disservice by drinking the Kool-Aidand believing that a multitasking learning environment will serve their bestpurposes” (“Digital Nation”). Students are under the impressions that technology will carry themthrough education and the professional world, but in reality it is no substitutefor deep, creative thought.
Thoughthe development of technology has given society many conveniences, it hashindered us in various ways. Whilewe have the opportunity to be more productive in school and more efficient atwork, our brains have rewired to be prone to distractions, in truth making usslower and less accurate. Theconnections to friends and family through digital technology are more numerousthan ever before, but we have come to rely on digital communication instead offace-to-face conversations. The entireway our society works is under construction because of technology, so much sothat there are now maladies named for the fears that come from disconnect. As these negative effects come tolight, it is the responsibility of each individual to decide how toproceed. Students andprofessionals of Generation Y can make simple changes that will set an examplefor the super-connected iGeneration. By simply taking the time to read a novel, turning the cell phone offwhen it’s not needed, and making a pledge to reduce the time on Facebook orYouTube, progress can be made. Small changes can set the standard for a society of less dependence ontechnology.
WorkCited
Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to OurBrains. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010. Print.
Dretzin, Rachel, dir. “DigitalNation: Life on the Virtual Frontier.” Frontline.PBS.org,
2Feb. 2010. Web. 21 Nov. 2010.
Gitlin, Jonathan. “DisconnectAnxiety: A Malady for the 21 st Century.” Ars Technica.
13Mar. 2008. Web. 7 Dec. 2010.
Lornic, John. “Driven toDistraction.” The Walrus. April 2007.Web. 10 Dec. 2010.
Markoff, John. “Internet Use Saidto Cut Into TV Viewing and Socializing.” NewYork
Times.New York Times, 30 Dec. 2004.Web. 10 Dec 2010.
Rosen, Larry. “Welcome tothe…iGeneration!” Education Digest 75.8(2010): 8-12.
AcademicSource Premier. Web. 21 Nov. 2010.
December 15, 2010 ProfessorDiDomenico
Research Paper
AsI am elbow deep in water washing dishes from the feast that was Thanksgivingdinner, I hear my twelve-year-old cousin call my name. “Alex!” he says, “will you playMonopoly with me?” I jump at thechance to prevent my fingers from getting any more prune-like and reply with anenthusiastic, “Sure!” As my cousinleads me into the living room I expect to see the board game set up on thefloor waiting for us. However, hedoes not have the familiar monopoly board, money or playing pieces ready. Instead, I sit next to my cousin on thecouch as he retrieves his iPad and asks me if I’m ready to begin.
Formany children who are like my younger cousin, technology is everywhere. They were brought up surfing theInternet and texting from smartphones at ages that seem unfathomable for anyoneof an older generation. Thechildren from this age group have become known as the “iGeneration” due totheir constant connection to digital technology. Their dependence on technology has become so great thatpeople from other age groups find it difficult to relate to these youngtechnology gurus. Our owngeneration, Generation Y, has also become increasingly dependent on the digitaltechnologies available to us. Weclaim that the Internet has made our lives so much easier, that once tedioustasks can now be completed at warp speed, and unmanageable to-do lists havebecome less stressful because we have learned to multitask. These assertions may seem to be likegifts from the digital gods, but the evolution of the nation’s digitaldependence comes with several negative side effects. Society’s communication skills are decreasing, our abilityto concentrate is slowly diminishing, and the human physiological makeup ischanging. The constantconnectivity that people now experience has been proven to actually alter andrewire the human brain. Bysubmitting to an entirely digital age, people are subjecting themselves to manynegative internal changes that could rework the brain in a way that cannot bereversed. It is my belief thatsociety as a whole should make conscious decisions to reduce the dependence ontechnology in a effort to combat the harmful effects that have come to definethe current generations.
Overthe last few decades, technology has developed into one of the most dominantaspects of daily life. From emailto text messaging, Skype to Facebook, digital technology has become the primarymean of communication across all generations. Generation Y, otherwise known as those born and raisedaround the change of the millennium, was the first generation to be raised witha significant amount of digital technology in daily life. Today, the students in this generationare more connected then ever before. Go to any college campus and the students will be looking at several webpages on a Macbook while texting on a Blackberry and listening to an iPod. Those brought up with developingtechnology have now become constantly connected and they struggle daily tosever the tie.
Ina society that prides itself on efficiency and high levels of productivity, thenecessity to be connected to digital technology is growing exponentially. On average, Americans use the Internetabout three hours a day (Markoff 1). When combined with texting and several other forms of technology, theaverage eighteen-year-old spends a little over twenty hours a day connected tothe cyber world (Rosen 9). Peoplein the high school and college age groups have an overwhelming need to alwaysbe in touch with what is going on externally. For them, everything is about information exchange andefficiency. There is little to nopersonal communication or emotional involvement for people who have that desireto always be wired. According toSherry Turkle, a professor of the Social Sciences and Technology at MIT, thetypical college student only wants to exchange information, nothing more. She states, “What I’m seeing is ageneration that says consistently, ‘I would rather text than make a telephonecall.’ Why? It’s less risky. I can just get the information outthere. I don’t have to get allinvolved; it’s more efficient” (“Digital Nation”). Information has become the only goal for most people ofGeneration Y. They want to searchfor and find simple data as quickly as possible without investing unnecessarytime or energy.
These changes havebecome prevalent not only among brilliant college and high school students withoverbooked daily calendars, but with the younger middle and elementary schoolstudents as well. Theseyoungsters, those students like my twelve-year-old cousin, are now beingreferred to as the iGeneration. Their most definitive feature is the high level of significance that theInternet has had in their lives from the beginning. These children were born with technology, mastering its useat very early ages and the amounts of technological dependence are even greaterthan that of their older siblings or relatives, those of Generation Y (Rosen8). These children are alsoconstantly connected to digital media even though they are not completing acollege thesis or an important work presentation; their purposes are mostlysocial. For this age group, the5-10 hours a day they spendwith technology are used to connect with friends and classmates (Rosen 9). They are no longer interested intangible toys or games because their desires lie in the virtual worlds oftechnology.
The drastic shiftin technological advances has led to major changes in many educational systems. Turkle again notices that this trendcauses changes in her students’ learning styles and studying skills. “They [the students] need to bestimulated in ways that they didn’t need to be stimulated before” (“DigitalNation”). Many schools across thenation are submitting to the digital world by implementing more technology inthe classroom such as laptops for students, assignments that are completed onthe Internet, and eBooks instead of standard textbooks (“Digital Nation”). This growing trend only reiterates thepoint that technology has fully encroached every aspect of daily life and thateach generation becomes more dependent on it.
Ever sincetechnology became such an integral part of daily life, people believed thatthey acquired new skills as a result of their constant connection. Multitasking is usually cited as apositive effect of being wired 24/7 because it seems to promote higher levelsof efficiency and productivity. Highschool and college students are very guilty of relying on multitasking in orderto function on a regular basis. Itis very common to see a student writing a paper while having multiple web pagesopen and texting friends at the same time. One student, a junior in college, was asked about histypical multitasking habits while getting work done. He replied, “I’m pretty much constantly texting and wheneverI study I have my laptop out and I’m listening to music, I’m watching a YouTubevideo, I’m checking my email non-stop, refreshing the page, I’m on Facebook,Facebook chat…so that I can always stay connected” (“Digital Nation”). This student was one of several askedto participate in a multitasking analysis conducted by Professor Clifford Nassat Stanford University. This studyput together several tests that involved completing easy tasks, such asidentifying a number as even or odd, while combating numerousdistractions. The test subjectswere college students who prided themselves at being extremely efficient becausethey excelled at multitasking. However, the test results showed that they performed very poorly doingsimple tasks and that the tasks were completed much slower than normal (“DigitalNation”). This goes to show thatmultitasking is not as productive as people once thought.
Multitasking hasbecome the coveted skill that any student or professional wants to master. Nevertheless, the psychological studyconducted at Stanford proved that multitasking is making people less productiveand accurate (“Digital Nation”). Our inner desire for vast amounts of information has actually backfiredand changed the way our brains function. By multitasking, we sell ourselves short. According to Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik,
…the deluge of multi-channel signals has produced an array ofconcentration-related problems, including lost productivity, cognitiveoverload, and a wearying diminishment in our ability to retain the veryinformation we consume with such voraciousness. The irony is that one of the fundamental promises ofinformation technology – the radical improvement in the efficiency of ourinteractions with one another – is being undermined by the technology’senormous capacity to overwhelm us with information and thus short-circuit ourneed to concentrate. (Lornic 1)
We like to think that our brainscan be flexible to these informational overloads. The adaptability of the brain has been studied for decadesand it has been shown to be very plastic, which is its ability to rewire itselfand change based on behavior and experience (Carr 31). However, the cognitive overload thatresults from constant digital use is becoming too much for the brain tohandle. Further neurologicalstudies show that the continual interruptions that one faces when dealing withmultiple technologies go beyond the flexible capabilities of the brain (Lornic3). Society must decide if multitaskingis actually beneficial. Ifmultitasking actually makes us slower at accomplishing simple tasks whiledecreasing accuracy, it doesn’t seem worth it. Taking the time to precisely finish fewer tasks is, inreality, more productive than haphazardly completing twice as many items.
Notonly does the brain sort through the countless amounts of information itreceives, it actually rewires itself to deal with the new technologies. Dr. Gary Small is a neuroscientist andprofessor of psychiatry at UCLA. He conducted the first study to thoroughly analyze the specific changesthat the brain undergoes when adjusting to Internet use (Carr 120). He scanned the brains of avid Internetusers and Internet novices. Dr.Small found that those who frequently web surfed had broader brain activitythan the novices. He then had thenovices spend one hour online for the next five days and scanned their brainsagain at the end of the time period. The dormant areas of the brain that existed prior to the more frequentInternet use were much more active once scanned a second time (Carr 121). Small’s experiment shed some light onthe extent of alterations that the brain goes through when using technology. He found that those who read web pageshave more brain activity in the areas associated with quick decision-making andsimple problem solving while those who read books have activity in regionsconnected to language, memory, and visual processing (Carr 122). It appeared that the skills wepossessed for deep thought, consideration, elaboration, complex language, andmemorization are being replaced by effortless, monotonous abilities. At the end of his experiment, Dr. Smallmade several very significant conclusions,
The current explosion of digital technology not only is changing theway we live and communicate but is rapidly and profoundly altering ourbrains. The daily use ofcomputers, smartphones, search engines, and other such tools stimulates braincell alteration and neurotransmitter release, gradually strengthening newneural pathways in our brains while weakening old ones. If our brains are so sensitive to justan hour a day of computer exposure, what happens when we spend more time[online]? (Carr 120)
These experimental conclusions werealso applied to the minds of younger Internet and technology users. When speaking with those studyingtechnological implications, Dr. Small worried that constant connectivity wouldhave negative effects on those who frequently used the Internet at earlyages. When talking about youngergenerations he said, “You have young people whose brains are not fullydeveloped, so how a young person chooses to spend their time will have aprofound effect on what their brain will be like for the rest of their lives” (“DigitalNation”). These valid statementsconcern many who study technology.
Oneof the most interesting findings about those who frequently use the Internet isthat they actually fear having to function without it. Solutions Research Group conducted asurvey of those who are constantly surrounded by technology to see if theyshowed symptoms of what has become known as disconnect anxiety. This term refers to people who sufferincreased levels of anxiety when separated from a cell phone or theInternet. The survey found that 27percent experiences high disconnect anxiety, while 41 percent of the populationundergoes the malady less frequently. The study also found that the levels of anxiety vary based on age. Older generational sufferers are moreanxious about cutoffs from work while younger people tend to become moreanxious when they are isolated from their peers (Gitlin 1). As it turns out, the high levels ofconnectivity in our society have manifest themselves in a new social syndrome.
Thisfear of disconnect from the digital world has caused our society to lose touchwith many of the skills we had mastered. People no longer desire to communicate face-to-face on an emotionallevel because their time is spent facing a screen. The time devoted to family, proper socialization, and evenhealthy living habits such as sleep are given lower priorities in daily life(Markoff 2). Society as a wholeseems to be less friendly and sociable due to the consistent connection todigital devices. It is much lesslikely to have a conversation with a stranger on an airplane or at the grocerystore because most people have their eyes glued to a digital device. There is a new disconnect among humansdue to the constant connection to technology. This technological evolution has also manifested itself inour recreation and education. Byrewiring our brains to constantly multitask, we have weakened our abilities toconcentrate and think deeply and creatively (Carr 140). Educators like Sherry Turkle see thattheir students’ learning skills have changed since technology saturated theirlives. As she says, “At MIT, Iteach the most brilliant students in the world. But they have done themselves a disservice by drinking the Kool-Aidand believing that a multitasking learning environment will serve their bestpurposes” (“Digital Nation”). Students are under the impressions that technology will carry themthrough education and the professional world, but in reality it is no substitutefor deep, creative thought.
Thoughthe development of technology has given society many conveniences, it hashindered us in various ways. Whilewe have the opportunity to be more productive in school and more efficient atwork, our brains have rewired to be prone to distractions, in truth making usslower and less accurate. Theconnections to friends and family through digital technology are more numerousthan ever before, but we have come to rely on digital communication instead offace-to-face conversations. The entireway our society works is under construction because of technology, so much sothat there are now maladies named for the fears that come from disconnect. As these negative effects come tolight, it is the responsibility of each individual to decide how toproceed. Students andprofessionals of Generation Y can make simple changes that will set an examplefor the super-connected iGeneration. By simply taking the time to read a novel, turning the cell phone offwhen it’s not needed, and making a pledge to reduce the time on Facebook orYouTube, progress can be made. Small changes can set the standard for a society of less dependence ontechnology.
WorkCited
Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to OurBrains. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010. Print.
Dretzin, Rachel, dir. “DigitalNation: Life on the Virtual Frontier.” Frontline.PBS.org,
2Feb. 2010. Web. 21 Nov. 2010.
Gitlin, Jonathan. “DisconnectAnxiety: A Malady for the 21 st Century.” Ars Technica.
13Mar. 2008. Web. 7 Dec. 2010.
Lornic, John. “Driven toDistraction.” The Walrus. April 2007.Web. 10 Dec. 2010.
Markoff, John. “Internet Use Saidto Cut Into TV Viewing and Socializing.” NewYork
Times.New York Times, 30 Dec. 2004.Web. 10 Dec 2010.
Rosen, Larry. “Welcome tothe…iGeneration!” Education Digest 75.8(2010): 8-12.
AcademicSource Premier. Web. 21 Nov. 2010.
