English 100
Professor Amy Bolaski
07-14-2012
I chose to do the opinion piece on Maia Szalavitz's "Does the Internet Really Make Everyone Crazy" from Time.com. The article essentially states Szalavitz's reaction to a recent Newsweek article that makes the argument that over exposure to digital life has caused an adverse reaction on the mental health of society. The article alludes to a recent psychotic episode in which viral video film maker Jason Russell ( best known for Kony 2012),was seen running nude and acting belligerent in San Diego.
The Newsweek article written by Tony Dokoupil centers in on the internet as the cause for this behavior by saying, "The current incarnation of the Internet—portable, social, accelerated, and all-pervasive—may be making us not just dumber or lonelier but more depressed and anxious, prone to obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit disorders, even outright psychotic. Our digitized minds can scan like those of drug addicts, and normal people are breaking down in sad and seemingly new ways."
Szalavitz feels Newsweek is attempting to induce mass panic regarding the internet's long term affects on individuals and our culture as a whole. By playing a duelist role to Dokoupils stance that digital exposure equates to damage, Szalavitz takes the route that all activites rewire the brain in some way. Szalavitz then uses the aid of sarcasm by smuggly stating " any activity we perform repeatedly will lead to brain changes: that’s known as learning. Riding a bicycle and playing the violin also rewire the brain, but we don’t choose to refer to these changes as 'damage.'"
The rhetorical strategies employed by Szalavitz are imagery, allusion, and sarcasm which are complimented by her appealing tone towards logical ethics. Her argument is most clear when she evokes the images of its toll on our youth by somberly recalling "some of the treatments used for Internet addiction, such as the abusive Internet treatment boot camps in China where several teens have died, suggest how easily the cure can become worse than the disease when unproven therapies for ill-defined problems spring up. "
Reaction:
I agree with Szalavitz for the most part, I liked how she stated summed up her thesis by saying "The Internet might indeed be a cause of our societal worries, but not necessarily because we’re addicted to it. And creating a moral panic based on flimsy evidence isn’t going to help, no matter what the real cause of our problems."
Although I don't think the internet can be alone blamed alone for inducing insanity, there is no doubt a clear link between electromagnetic fields and specific emotional states in humans. Studies where the habits of humans have been changed by magnetic fields have been examined exhaustively and there is a definite link.
Even with that in mind the issue is too multifaceted to be pinned on any single factor.The internet and our ever advancing technology has opened so many new abilities to the world that to turn back is out of the question. However I feel with digital life stepping to the forefront of peoples lives, the grey area in which cyber ethics may lead us could exponentially complexify along with the technology.
http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/13/does-the-internet-make-everyone-or-just-journalists-crazy/
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