On any given night, the typical teenager can be found sitting at her desk agonizing over homework—while chatting away online, checking Facebook, and perhaps catching up on an episode of Gossip Girl. She can’t concentrate; her mind flutters here and there without staying too long on any particular thought. Technology like search engines helps her conduct research for her paper, but it also provides a wealth of potential distractions.

The past decade has launched us into a flourishing Information Age. Information is everywhere, from television to the Internet. At Harvard, it is common to see students walking alone, BlackBerries and iPhones in hand, seemingly oblivious to the world surrounding them. While easy access to information has clear positive effects, it has also removed us from the real world, making us excessively dependent on technology, unable to focus, and isolated from those around us.

The Internet has helped facilitate communication—but communication with whom? While we have been able to connect more easily with, say, Christina Aguilera or total strangers from the other side of the globe we meet on MySpace or in chat rooms, we have been separated from the people that matter. According to a Stanford study, those who use the Internet frequently—an estimated 31 percent of the U.S. population—spend an average of 70 minutes fewer per day interacting with family than those who use the Internet less frequently or not at all.

Many of us are so addicted to instant messaging or updating our Facebook albums that it can be hard to tear ourselves away from our precious technology long enough to spend time with real people. The enormous growth in membership in time-consuming online games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life is indicative of this problem—Second Life alone has 1.3 million users who log in per month. Many live in this virtual reality, paying real money for brand-name products or even marrying other characters within the game.

Certainly, cyberspace provides an anonymity and freedom that is safe and exciting in a way that the real world can never be, letting us escape from our problems and live out the life we want. We choose our own reality online to replace real life. Is someone bothering you? In Second Life, you can mute them with the click of a button.

Unfortunately, this ability to change settings or switch channels whenever we want has a downside. Research has shown that exposure to repeated blips of information from video games and TV may rewire the brain to create shorter attention spans. Some researchers have even suggested that the rise in cases of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder may be connected to the growing screen culture.

In response, advertisements, television shows, and even the news are placing more and more emphasis on keeping the viewer entertained with short clips rather than informing them with long ones. The 30-second television commercial is all but extinct; we simply cannot focus for that long anymore. How many of us have spent hours flipping through the television, unable to settle on just one channel? Reared on a diet of constant entertainment, it is no wonder that some of us fail to find instant gratification in life and turn even more toward the virtual world.

This withdrawal from reality, however, is extremely hazardous to our health. A growing body of research has revealed a strong correlation between excessive Internet use and mental disorders. Some neuroscientists, for instance, have suggested a possible link between the increase in online relationships and the rise in autism. Since online chatting does not require the sensitivity to tone and body language like a real conversation does, excessive reliance on online communication might cause our face-to-face communication skills to deteriorate. This leads to further social isolation as we retreat back into our online relationships.

Some of the “positive” effects of technology have, indeed, backfired on us. There is such a thing as being too connected with technology, too inundated with information, and too out of touch with the world around us. This leaves us no time for silent reflection and no peace unless we immerse ourselves in some exciting computer-generated fantasy. Perhaps it is time to unplug, disconnect, and go make our own more vivid adventures in reality.


Aixin Wang ’12, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Stoughton Hall.