By Zhou Xingzi

At 7 p.m. on March 29th, Mr. Mitch Margolis, an overseas teacher from SFL, held a lecture named Is the Internet Making us Dumber? in Lize Building Room C107.

First of all, Mr. Mitch Margolis listed changes of daily life brought by the Internet. He pointed out that the biggest advantage of Internet was to provide any information anytime you want. However, it was also the biggest disadvantage, because too much unnecessary information could distract your attention from the important things and waste your time. He said that he used to read a book for a whole afternoon, but now tempted by the Internet he couldn’t concentrate for even 10 minutes.

The Internet also influenced our way of communication. Mr. Mitch Margolis has more than 100 friends on the Internet now. Through his life experience, he thought that Internet could help you make friends, but it couldn’t teach you some important communication skills, such as body language.

With the development of Internet, people''s thinking model has been changed as well. As a result, someone claimed that the Internet would harm our thinking ability, or even ruin our peaceful life. But Mr. Mitch Margolis thought that the network, a double-edged sword, was just a tool. People shouldn’t blame it for all the negative aspects, because it was people who decided their own changes.

During the lecture, Mr. Mitch Margolis walked around the classroom instead of just standing on the stage, which contributed to a relaxing atmosphere of communication between teachers and students. After the lecture, some students still discussed the related topics with him.