The hard truth about internet and smartphones

A study claims that evolution's making us dumber,
and internet, smartphones, reality shows and junk
food are to blame.
Reality TV shows
Science speak: "The entertainment we consume
can influence our emotions and behaviour" –
according to the study, A Story About a Stupid
Person Can Make You Act Stupid (or Smart), by
Markus Appel.
What it means: You are what you watch and
watching dumb people do dumb stuff can make
you dumb too.
Researchers conducted a study wherein they made
people watch a video called "foolish soccer
hooligan" – a man who wakes up, gets drunk, goes
to a soccer match and picks a fight.
Another group of people watched the story's longer
version where the guy does nothing stupid. The
latter beat the former at a general knowledge test.
Smartphones
Science speak: "Scientists say people who
constantly multitask are more easily distracted.
Such task-switching, aka multi-tasking, has been
shown in several studies to increase stress, which
can interfere with short-term memory, leading to
more mistakes," according to a magazine.
What that means: How many us deserve a degree
in Angry Birds rather than whatever course we
were pursuing in college, considering how many
hours in every lecture were dedicated to slaying
those pigs?
Do you feel the sudden desperation to type
"whatsupp dude" to anyone on your contact list
the minute your boss starts a meeting? Blame the
smartphone. Thanks to it, we just don't have any
attention span left.
It also makes us think we're superhumans who can
text, drive and sing all the lyrics to the new Justin
Bieber song – all at the same time. Isn't that
evidence enough of our stupidity? What good have
smartphones done till now anyway?
How is "gr8 prty c u l8r" better than the grunting
of our prehistoric ancestors? Although there still
isn't any neurological study to substantiate the
fact that smartphones make us dumb, there are
"distraction studies" aplenty.
Junk food
Science speak: According to Briston University
study, children who eat junk food grow up with a
lower IQ. The brain grows at its fastest during the
first three years and good nutrition during this
period may encourage optimal brain growth.
What it means: You mean junk food makes us fat
and stupid? If you hadn't yet lost your will to live,
here's another piece of bad news – sugar makes
you dumb too.
Researchers at UCLA found that rats had a harder
time navigating a maze after eating a fructose-only
diet.
The internet
Science speak: Google is replacing our brains.
Earlier we had fewer resources (i.e. books) to gain
information and knowing we didn't have 24/7
access to those meant our brains stored the
information. With the advent of Google, our brains
no longer know how to retain the info, according to
Forensic Psychology.
What it means: Using Google is marginally better
than flushing your brain down the toilet. Think that
was a little too harsh?
Well, that was nothing compared to the website's
melodramatic ending to the study: "if Google were
to explode, so would our memory".
All this sounds like a plot of one of those Will Smith
vs the Robots movies, we know, but this is real life!