Brain Enhancement, Good or Bad? -Jennifer M. and Diana G.

Brain enhancement comes in different forms. There are those who use it for academic purposes, and those who use it for the sake of becoming the best at a sport or competition. Using drugs to enhance your performance in a negative way can affect both your physical and mental health, but again, it’s the way you decide to use it that counts. Today, there are more brain enhancement drugs that are most likely to be found anywhere than 10-20 years ago. It’s also become common to advertise the consumption of brain boosting drugs such as 5 hour energy, Energy Shot, Addium and many more that convince/deceive the public that they actually work and help boost their performance. People are beginning to use brain enhancement drugs in their everyday life, whether it be to improve academic performance or become the best at a skill through the use of prescribed drugs.

 

Consuming these drugs has become a contradictory topic because by consuming them people become more active or more capable of being more successful academically. According to the New York Times this makes them set a higher standard, but this makes it harder for other who don’t have access to this medication to achieve higher goals. But it does create some sort of competition because most people consume them to be better that everyone else. When they realize how well they perform with the medication they become addicted to and become convinced that with these drugs it’ll help achieve their goal. This also created a wider gap of the people who can access the medication and those who don’t.
Many argue that the use of these drugs for academic performance is different from sports and competitive activities. And in a way they are very different because athletes use it to strengthen their physical body while people who consume them for academic purposes strengthen their brain to be able to learn everything faster. We are currently against the use of drugs for personal gain and the availability of these prescribed drugs in stores. While yes, these drugs can be used for academic improvement it can also lead to addiction and bad mental/physical health. The most important goal is to ensure the safety of the public and prevent the social impact this will bring.