Títol: iMinds – How screens are leaving their mark in our brain?
Autora: Gurleen Kaur Singh
Tutor: Ignacio Camaño
Modalitat: Ciències Social
Àrea curricular: Sociologia
Centre: Ins Francesc Vidal i Barraquer
Localitat: Tarragona
Objectius:
To find out if the new technologies are having any negative consequences in reading and listening comprehension.
To demonstrate the after-effects in the short and long term memory of teenagers who study using a digital device.
To understand how people adjust their daily life with the new technologies.
Hipòtesi:
No one denies the advantages of internet and how the new technologies are changing our lives. Internet has become our life. Communication has changed brutally, the spread of culture has increased, studies has changed their methodology… But, what about the disadvantages? Nobody says anything against internet. It seems like internet has changed our lives completely, and no one is taking care of it. In our project, we want to demonstrate that the problems like concentration and comprehension,especially among teenagers, are real.That is why we decided to call our research project iMinds. Our brains have a big dependency internet. Internet is our external storage memory.
Procés:
The methodology used can be divided in two.
Firstly, we have conducted a survey and the other part has been the experiments. But first of all, we have done some bibliographic research. To start, we define Internet and its uses. Then, we talk about the controversial issue of the new technologies and which can be the most important disadvantages. The Information Society has been an important part of the theory and finally we have described the google effect.
After that, our research starts. To introduce the experiments, we have done a survey about the influence of new technologies. We have chosen 5 pairs of 17-year-old twinsf “Francesc Vidal i Barraquer high school” in Tarrragona. They were chosen to avoid social, economic and other differences in the two groups. So, we have done four experiments. Each experiment focuses on a different concept but all of them were carried out the first session, then after a week and finally after a month.
A total of four experiments (working with five pairs of twins along more than one month) allow to compare the degree of learning and the attention paid depending on whether we obtain information through a digital device or not.
Conclusions:
This research project has been the most challenging work for me.
The most difficult part has been the bibliographic research because I was afraid that my English vocabulary and grammar weren’t good enough.
It has been the first big project done by me and writing it in English has been a higher level of difficulty. I’ve learned a lot doing it because I did not know about all the negative consequences of internet. Besides, I did not expect that all the experiments would have had as surprising results as they did. Having 5 pairs of twin brothers and sisters in 1st of “Batxillerat” has been a great help because they were extremely useful for the clarity of the experiments results.
I’m proud of my research project but I think that the main problem was the time. I organized the time very badly. Besides, we had the biggest idea of doing each experiment three times in order to check the results in a significant period of time.
I would say that if someday I want to continue this project I will probably do more experiments related with touching a book. Maybe we can extract more results with a book reading.
I also want to add that the questions asked in all the questionnaires were insufficient because I didn’t realize that I couldn’t extract all the information expected. The logos experiment was too hard because the collage was so big and was difficult to memorize all the logos.
After all, this research project has helped me with my English writing and pronunciation and I have also learned how to analyze different type of experiments. I didn’t know that the problems with internet were so socking. Maybe it would change my point of view.
Bibliografia:
- GREENFIELD, Susan. Mind change. How digital technologies are living their marks in our brains. Penguin Random House. London. 2014
- CARR, Nicholas. The shallows. What the internet is doing to our brains. Norton Paperbak. United States of America. 2011.
Research of disadvantages of internet (consulted in 9/8/2016)
- http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-internet-definition-lesson-quiz.html
- http://www.zonealarm.com/blog/2015/02/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-the-internet/
- http://www.buzzle.com/articles/advantages-disadvantages-internet.html
- http://www.advantages-disadvantages.co/internet/
Research of a controversial issue (consulted in 27/8/2016)
- http://www.bangthetable.com/disadvantages-of-online-communication/
- http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/spam
- http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/s/spam.htm
- http://www.yourdictionary.com/computer-virus
- http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/T/Trojan_horse.html
- http://netaddiction.com/internet-addiction-test/
- http://www.guardchild.com/statistics/
Research of information society (consulted in 24/9/2016)