At a time when the tools of influence are accelerating and the fronts of confrontation are changing, security threats are no longer limited to weapons and geography, but minds have become the first arena of war and the last line of defense
The book What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr is not just a cognitive presentation, but a deep warning about a soft programming process that takes place inside the minds of individuals daily through screens and devices without them realizing it.
Carr explains that the brain is shaped by what we constantly practice, and with the dominance of the accelerated and fragmented digital pattern, our minds become incapable of concentration, reflection and complex thinking, and this poses not only a cognitive challenge but also a silent security threat because the superficial mind is hackable, easily led, and does not have verification tools or the ability to link information to its context.
From our position as specialists in media psychology, we realize that the media is no longer a carrier of information only, but has become a component of consciousness, a trend maker and an arena for behavioral manipulation, and this is what makes digital platforms today one of the most dangerous tools of social and political influence when censorship and awareness are absent
The issue does not lie in the abundance of information, but in the way it is consumed. The constant exposure to quick posts, short clips, and ready-made phrases creates a lazy mental pattern that is satisfied with immediate interaction and aversion to deep thinking, which weakens the critical sense and increases the fragility of public awareness.
The most important security challenge is how to protect our societies from this slow erosion of the ability to analyze, and how to build an intellectual immune system within each individual that prevents him from being led behind catchy headlines, targeted campaigns or fabricated narratives.
We need to integrate media psychology into security policies, not as a matter of culture but as a matter of national prevention, because penetrating consciousness is easier than penetrating borders, and if the citizen loses his ability to think independently, all external protection tools will be useless.
However, my reading of the book goes beyond warning to critical analysis, as the author sheds light on a real phenomenon, but he deals with it from an individual cognitive perspective, while reality dictates that we should read it as a much deeper, collective, institutionalized danger.
We are not only facing a shift in the behavior of individuals, but the growth of a global superficial industry that feeds the collective unconscious and reshapes societies according to the logic of consumption rather than awareness and according to the speed of content rather than its depth, and this is what we must face not only with research but with intellectual security policies that cut off the way to any hidden project that aims to dehumanize humans and turn them into passive recipients without identity or consciousness
Major General Dr. Saad Maan Al-Mousawi - Head of the Security Media Cell
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