Technology & Gadgets – Are “Smart Phones” making us dumber?

I am constantly amazed by the continuous advances in technology such as navigation devices, iPhones, etc.  They are functional, desirable, very cool and fun to use; in some cases they are also a fashion statement (i.e. my sexy white 3Gs iPhone).  If you are anything like me, you rely on your smart phone to look up the number of your favorite carryout spot, points of interest, email, weather, answer everyday questions, or to use any one of the 50,000 available apps.

Im sure you have read, heard, or thought of this topic before, by relying so heavily on our iPhones/smart phones, does it make us dumber?

To this day, I can tell you every phone number that I learned in the first 16 years of my life, I can also tell you that I have not learned a single number since.  In fact, I have to look in my contact list to find my wife’s phone number.  Not good.  Im not saying that memorizing numbers makes someone smarter but I do think that the simple tasks that we are now looking to our phones for rather than using our brains problem solving ability might be making ME a bit dumber.  Use it or lose it?

Want another example of this? Think navigation systems. I went my whole life navigating by the stars (not really, just maps) and finding my way. I have a great track record of reaching my destinations, no matter the mode of transportation. I looked at a map, related it to my surroundings, and found my way. All too often, navigation today is handed off to a device.  Many motorists can’t make sense of a basic road map, or estimate the distance between two points on a printed page.  They are lost if their machine loses touch with the satellites.  That being said, I rarely look at a map anymore, thanks Nav.

Most of the time, technology works as intended.  We get to our destinations faster thanks to Nav systems, its more than convenient to have a wealth of information at your finger tips at any given time.  But many people who rely on technology have given up something vital yet intangible.  They’ve lost the ability to think through a navigation problem themselves.  They have become slaves to technology out of intellectual laziness, and the laziness makes them less smart. The brain wiring that solves navigation problems allows us to solve other problems too.  Computers don’t have that flexibility, and neither do we when we let a device do our thinking.

What are your thoughts?