Article in Psychology Today by, John Elder Robison
Robinson states, I grew up believing knowledge was something to be treasured. Not anymore. Any fool with a cell phone or a laptop can look up life’s answers at the drop of a hat, provided there’s cell phone service. So where does that leave the knowledgeable geeks of yesterday? I guess what was special has become ordinary, at least on first glance.
What happened? Did the pocket Internet make everyone smarter? Or does it just facilitate snappy comebacks, with a sixty-second web browser delay?
Robinson says, I used to think the Internet was a tide that lifted all boats, knowledge wise, but now I wonder if the opposite is true. I think the Internet and information technology in general makes us dumber, in some key ways.
He goes on to say, “When I was a kid, you had to actually memorize and know the capitals of states if you wanted to talk geography. And you never knew when that might happen.
So what, today’s young people say. The iphone will tell you more about geography in sixty seconds than you could possibly remember. That’s true, but by relying on the computer, we stop training out minds, and we stop filling our memory banks.
By doing so, I believe we diminish our ability to solve life’s problems unaided, and we become more and more dependent on machines.
When the machines give us answers, we seem superficially smarter, but we really are dumber, because we’re not building the networks in our brains to solve a whole host of problems.
Want another example of this? Think navigation. I went my whole life looking at maps and finding my way. I have a long, long history of reaching my destinations, whether on foot, by boat, or by car. I looked at a map, related it to the world around me, and found my way.
All too often, navigation today is handed off to a machine. 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.
Most of the time, technology works as it should. People get to their destinations faster thanks to computers. But people who rely on machines have given up something vital yet intangible.
They’ve lost the ability to think through a navigation problem themselves. They have become slaves to machines 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 abdicate our thinking to machines.
I think this point is lost on many young people today. After all, if they have not developed certain processing abilities in their minds, how can they know what they are missing?
I know, because I see what I lose when I rely on technology and it fails. I think of my frustration when my car gets lost, and I recall all those times when I solved my own problems and found my own way, uneventfully although a bit slower.
For many people, web browsing has replaced book reading. Recent studies suggest that their attention spans are reduced as a result. When we rely on a computer to look up facts, instead of our own memory, the price may not be obvious. But I believe it’s there, and it real.
The Independent, UK Genevieve Roberts , Thursday July 2015
A recent study suggests 90 per cent of us are suffering from digital amnesia. More than 70 per cent of people don’t know their children’s phone numbers by heart, and 49 per cent have not memorized their partner’s number.
While those of us who grew up in a landline-only world may also remember friends’ home numbers from that era, we are unlikely to know their current mobile number, as our phones do the job.
The Kaspersky Lab concludes we don’t commit data to memory because of the “Google Effect” – we’re safe in the knowledge that answers are just a click away, and are happy to treat the web like an extension to our own memory.
Dr Maria Wimber, lecturer at the University of Birmingham’s School of Psychology, worked with an internet security firm on their research. She believes the internet simply changes the way we handle and store information, so the Google Effect “makes us good at remembering where to find a given bit of information, but not necessarily what the information was.
It is likely to be true that we don’t attempt to store information in our own memory to the same degree that we used to, because we know that the internet knows everything.”
These findings echo Columbia University Professor Betsy Sparrow’s research on the Google Effect on memory, which concluded, “Our brains rely on the internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker.
We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.”
This even extends to photographs. A Fairfield University study in 2003 found that taking photos reduces our memories. Participants were asked to look around a museum, and those who took photos of each object remembered fewer objects and details about them than those who simply observed.
Dr Wimber says: “One could speculate that this extends to personal memories, as constantly looking at the world through the lens of our smartphone camera may result in us trusting our smartphones to store our memories for us. This way, we pay less attention to life itself and become worse at remembering events from our own lives.”
But is this making us more stupid? Anthropologist Dr Genevieve Bell, a vice-president at Intel and director of the company’s Corporate Sensing and Insights Group, believes not.
She says technology “helps us live smarter” as we’re able to access answers.
“Being able to create a well-formed question is an act of intelligence, as you quickly work out what information you want to extract and identify the app to help achieve this. To me, this suggests a level of engagement with the world that’s not about dumbness.”
In contrast, Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember and The Glass Cage: Where Automation is Taking Us, believes we should be alarmed.
“We’re missing the real danger, that human memory is not the same as the memory in a computer: it’s through remembering that we make connections with what we know, what we feel, and this gives rise to personal knowledge.
If we’re not forming rich connections in our own minds, we’re not creating knowledge. Science tells us memory consolidation involves attentiveness: it’s in this process that you form these connections.”
He believes the combination of the Google Effect and the constant distraction of smartphones, constantly delivering information, is concerning. A Microsoft study found the average human attention span fell from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds today.
“There is a superficiality to a lot of our thinking,” Carr says. “Not just the cognitive side, but also the emotional side. That not only reduces richness in one’s own life and sense of self, but if we assume that rich, deep thinking is essential to society then it will have a detrimental effect on that over the long run.
Carr believes our brains are not like hard drives, or refrigerators that can get overstuffed so there’s no more room. In contrast, he says they expand: “It’s not as if remembering and thinking are separate processes. The more things you remember, the more material you have to work on, the more interesting your thoughts are likely to be,” he says.
The greatest leaders in history had one thing in common folks. They all read voraciously.
Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein in the past, just to name a few.
Doesn’t apply today?
What if I told you that Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Reese Witherspoon, Elon Musk, and yes, Lebron James all put down their phones, and take the time to read voraciously? It’s true
So, is reading as opposed to depending on technology the answer?
Here are a few benefits I found in an article I found written by Jeff Somers on the Barnes and Noble web site.
1. Situational Awareness.
People who read heavily encounter a lot of unexpected situations, if only on the page, and are thus trained to carefully note details on the fly. This skill carries over into real life, where the same attention to detail and anticipation of small mysteries that serves us well while reading complex novels allows us to assess a situation quickly and stay aware of what’s going on around us (even when we’re reading while walking).
2. Forethought.
Books allow us to experience different lifestyles, cultures, historical periods, and points of view—many more than we’d be able to in real life. This in turn allows us to see patterns play out both across history and within the imagination. As the saying goes, history repeats itself. The more you read, the more we’re able to see those same patterns in your daily life, predict their outcomes, and adjust our behavior accordingly.
3. Empathy.
The ability to experience other peoples’ points of view means voracious readers are more empathetic. Because we’ve walked virtually in other people’s shoes, readers have been forced to imagine themselves in various situations—and we know we might be found wanting if something similar happened to us. This understanding of our own frailties makes us more likely to be kind to others.
4. The Ability to be Alone.
Solitude is a super power, especially in the crowded, digitally-linked modern age. People who can tolerate and make good use of alone time are people who have confidence and self-reliance. Reading is a way of training ourselves to value solitude instead of fearing it.
5. A Sense of History.
People who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. People who devour books of any kind are bound to pick up a better sense of history than most, with the end result being that they can see patterns, big and small, and have some idea of where those patterns will end. This isn’t just about the “big” patterns of history like fascism or economic cycles, but also the “small” patterns of interpersonal relationships, tolerance of other beliefs and lifestyles, and self-care.
6. The Sherlock Holmes Scan.
Reading teaches us to pay attention. All it takes is to be fooled once by the secret villain in a book, or the hero in disguise, and the reader vows to never be fooled again, and to catch every single detail in future stories. We inevitably bring this skill into our daily lives, and find ourselves assessing the people we meet with a head-to-toe scan straight out of a Sherlock Holmes story.
7. No Screens Necessary.
Readers are blackout-proof. While digital books and ereaders are great tools, someone who simply enjoys reading for reading’s sake is well-equipped to survive blackouts, disasters, zombie apocalypses, and long flights sandwiched in-between strangers in the middle seat. They don’t need electricity, screens, or passwords—they just need the words.
8. Intense Concentration.
Reading, requires—and teaches—concentration. Attention spans elongate, vocabularies improve, and the ability to appreciate subtleties beyond the superficial elements of the plot takes root. Concentration and attention span are increasingly important in a world where fewer people seem to possess them, positioning book nerds to inherit the Earth—or dominate the idiocracy.
9. Time Management.
Reading a lot of books isn’t about passing a few moments before bedtime. It takes discipline and planning to get through so many. The more books we manage to cram into a week, the better we become at managing every moment. That skill translates into careers and home lives—and maps to any resource in need of proper management.
10. Writing.
Finally, bigger readers are better writers. It’s no coincidence that the cornerstone of all advice on improving writing is to read more. Voracious readers become much better writers, if only because we have a much larger source of inspiration—and writing has become even more important in the internet age, which remains reliant on text for information exchange.
So there you have it folks. Call me old fashioned. I have over 1300 books in my library and have read them all. Does that make me smart? Absolutely not.
I learn something new every day. Why? Because of the skill set one gains from reading. That is the key. Pick a book you will enjoy. Read it for it’s entertainment value alone, and guess what? When you have finished, you will have picked up skills that will be of benefit to you every day.
So, back to our original question, is technology making us dumber?