Are We Becoming Techno-Dumb?
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This evening, I had the unpleasantry of having my cell phone die while finishing some last minute Christmas shopping. While I am usually good about keeping my phone charged, a strange sense of desperation overcame me, knowing it would be HOURS before I would have a chance to utilize my little friend again. Even stranger was that my worry was not that someone may call in an emergency, but that I might miss an email, Tweet or text message.
Once hyperventilation ceased, I began thinking about how much of my important daily information lives in a cloud; phone numbers, addresses, messages, etc. I realized that aside from the phone numbers embedded in my head, pre-mobile era, that I don’t have more than a couple of these items memorized. I couldn’t help but wonder…Does this make me dumb?
The rapidity of technology has inarguably introduced some major conveniences for us, but are they coming at a cost? We don’t have to worry about remembering what our spouse needed from the grocery store because it’s stored in a text message. We aren’t forced to reflect on directions to get through to the other side of town because our GPS tells us when to turn.
Recent links between doing crossword and sudoku puzzles and the positive effects on preventing Alzheimer’s Disease seem to prove that simple tasks can have a lasting effect on our mental health. Are we simply taking advantage of technology by removing unneeded things and utilizing our brains for more important information? Or are we growing overly dependent and becoming Techno-Dumb?
I had a similar a epiphany recently when my phone went dark. I really only know about 10 phone numbers by heart these days; 4 closest family members, 2 best friends, 1 ex-husband, 1 ex-boyfriend, work and my hair salon, (don’t ask
. But, numbers used to be something that I was great at memorizing a gazillion of… especially around Chicago where there are multiple area codes to keep straight. I don’t even know my dad’s cell by heart and he’s my #1 call in an emergency… oops. That Said. I don’t think it makes us “dumb” but it does put us in a bad spot if our phone battery runs dead. These days there is so much information slung at us that we need a little help from mobile devices and the like to catch and deal with it all. I side with the theory that we use that real estate in our brain for something else we need to process and we march on…
Thank you for putting that into words. I do in fact struggle with this same concern. I can see my memory fading as I use Birthday Reminder.com to help me remember people’s birthday who are very close to me. In one way, I don’t know how I’d live without it. But on the otherhand, I DID live without it. I think I’ll do some more crosswords and sudoko…
Eric:
Your post sounds very familiar to some old debates:
1. Will the written language cause individuals to stop thinking for themselves?
2. Will the typewriter cause people to forget how to write?
3. Do calculators cause students to become dumb and not to develop adequate math skills?
All three are based on assumptions that advancements in technology will cause us to become dumb. All three are based on fear, fear of the unknown, and the battle cry for status quo.
What makes us intelligent—the ability to reason and learn—is staying the same and will never fundamentally change because of technology. On the other hand, technology, from the written language to pocket calculators to the Internet to mobile devices, is radically changing the notion of the intelligence necessary to function in the modern world.
Intelligence is the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. Intelligence is not just about book learning, test scores or being able to recall phone numbers and birthdates. It reflects a deeper understanding of the world. It is the ability to adapt and thrive in our own environments not the ability to recall facts or information.
Technology has allowed us to be more efficient and to present information that is more accurate. Think about today’s economists that rely on knowledge of programming to create complex mathematical algorithms to compute answers and produce elaborate projections. 60 years ago, economists would have done this by hand with paper, pencil and a slide rule. Does that make today’s economist less smart than those from the 1950s? No. Today’s economists have traded one skill for another.
One of the 1960s pioneers of personal computing, Doug Engelbart, envisioned that the PC would augment human intelligence. He believes that society’s ability to gain insight from information has evolved with the help of computers.
I tend to agree him. Technology’s democratization of information is providing instant access to information and, in a sense, improving the practical application of intelligence for everyone.
In my opinion, ignorance leads to a loss of freedom, not the inability to recall a list or directions to the local store.