The Dual Influence Of Information Technology On Cognitive Ability

Information technology system is the technological combination of acquisition,transmission,processing,storage,display,retrieval and application of information.Some of them have brought great impact to human life,such as computer technology,network technology,information storage technology,virtual reality technology.The rapid development of modern information technology makes it possible to accomplish the communication of two-way,multi-point,multi-media dissemination,which triggering a trend of social network.Digital means making a gradual integration of various forms of media,which makes it possible for sound,image,text,video and even smell,touch transmitting through network.Furthermore,asynchronous communication and real-time communication can be achieved by a variety of network interface in a one-to-many and even many-to-many way.Nowadays,Human being constantly adapt to drastic changes in technology.At the same time,our world has been reconstructed during the mediation.Object and subject and the relationship between them are in flux.People will redefine themselves.Am I still a unified,rational subject? What is the difference between automatic machines and I? In information age,a double impact has been brought to human’s cognitive ability by technology: predicament of gaining as well as losing.What we should do is to seek balance with a dialectical rational attitude.Most academic research focus on philosophical problems of modern information technology,such as ontology,epistemology,ethics,social and historical dimension.As far as this paper is concerned to explore how human cognitive ability being affected by information technology system from a perspective of epistemology.