Creativity And Internet: Is Internet Curbing Creativity, Making Us Lazy?

The first internet connections were laid in the late 1950's and since then the world has undergone a sea change, the power of the World Wide Web is enormous and it has encompassed all aspects of our lives, whether it is our daily living, education, health care or entertainment. As we surge towards future, our dependence on the internet is only expected to grow. 

The world that has now become a global city has a lot to do with the internet. With the power of web, mobile phones and internet on the go we are just a few seconds away from each other no matter which part of the world we may be. 

Internet has impacted every areas of our lifestyle and changed the way we now manage our stuff. The world has not just become a Global city, but a global market place where one can either buy or sell their product globally. It has not just become a great platform for businesses to promote, advertise their goods and services but it has brought us to the stage where one can comfortably run a business sitting within the comforts of their homes. There are different types of internet business options and one can choose based on ones preferences and amount of capital he/she can invest.

Internet has literally revolutionized the traditional shopping practices in our lives. Though there are many places that we still frequent to shop for our favorite items but to be able to choose and buy products from multiple vendors at the same time and that too without stepping out of the home. There are websites that provide professional service ranging from Spa at home or home cleaning service. You name it and everything is available on the net and one can avail the needed services.

The internet is a warehouse of information as vast as the ocean. It is a one stop guide to all information and queries related to, style, fashion, beauty, hobbies, education, jobs, arts and culture, travel and many more. 

Internet has a great role to play when it comes to education. In today’s world it has become difficult to keep pace with time and internet has greatly helped for aspiring students to enroll for various courses online. One does not need to travel long distances to attend classes and can attend online classes from the comfort of their homes.

When it comes to art and creativity internet has opened a new world where one can at the click of a button find information about myriad of creative ideas. The internet is flooded with information and now it has become easy for students and teachers alike to pull references out of internet and quote, however, it necessarily does not take into account the meaning, scope or the validity of the work that is being referenced and quoted from. This chain continues by others quoting the same and will become a source of reference for the future generations that perpetuate the system of content curation.Today Content curation itself does not include generating or creating new content but simply gathering facts from different sources available online and creating a mash up of ideas. This itself depicts the fact that internet does curb creativity and also the authenticity of the information.

Internet is full of plausible lies, and how can a population be more creative if the facts that they are trying to work with is not right to start with. It has been observed that when it comes to creating new content or writing about a subject, instead of actually testing it out or checking it or trying out the experiment people most often pull out references available on the internet and go about adding their bit to it. Take for example, travel and tourism, one can find several people writing about particular destinations without personally being there in the first place. There have been countless episodes where people have trusted this information only to be surprised or disappointed when they actually visited those places which were recommended and not find it as interesting or services that were inadequate.  

Internet has made us very lazy. We no longer bother about retaining information; everything is available at our finger tips so we have started using our memory less and less. We have started outsourcing our thinking to the internet. It is very damaging. It is said the human brain is like a spade, the more you use it the sharper it gets. Our brain appears to reinforce a memory each time we recollect it, and similarly it fades memories which are irrelevant and distract us. The security firm Kaspersky did some research into this phenomenon and dubbed the whole thing “digital amnesia”.We now do not bother much about retaining information and keep going back to the internet to check as and when we require the information. This passive way of looking at the information even though it might be frequently does not create a solid lasting memory trace. 

This whole scenario is quite disturbing. There was a time before the internet when in order o complete an assignment or write about a subject students used to visit the library and pick up books, write notes, and then go about creating something original with the information that was gathered. The brain was put to work and as they toiled these information got embedded into the memory long after the task was over. The same applied in case of different experiments that students had to perform; these hands on experiments not only helped them understand the concept at a deeper level but often something new came out during the process of different permutations and combinations, which has none become if not totally but kind of redundant. All information is available at the click of a button and it is a simple procedure that is followed till one gets to the result. There is lack of creativity; it has become unknowingly a practice not to go the extra mile or in most case put on the thinking hat.

Good news is, people are now trying to educate themselves about the over use of internet. What internet has done to our brain luckily can be changed by spending more time off internet, as luckily our brain can quickly adapt with the change and go back to retaining more memory as we activate more neurons by trying doing things ourselves and not depending on the internet all the time. Good practices like reading more books, learning new languages and last but not the least having a good sleep and not staring at the internet pages late into the night.

By: MadhuchandaSaxena