Is technology making us dumber?

[6-eyed]

An easy example is how we don’t remember phone numbers anymore now that we have smart phones.

But there are other examples. I know plenty of people who lack basic cooking skills because of microwaveable meals.

Zip ties are another culprit. Because I use zip ties, I forgot how to tie bowline knots.

[Youfreeme]

Losing or never forming specific skills isn't making us dumber. Memorizing a phone number or knowing how to cook or tie a knot doesn't really make you smart, it just means that you know how to do something. Technology allows us to allocate our mental energy differently than we used to.

If we so choose, technology enables us to spend countless extra hours solving new problems that we never had the capacity to solve before, since our time was consumed with many other tasks. I think a lot of the problems we are able to address today are the result of technology making our mundane tasks less effortful.

[Din Djarin]

Well said

[Likahamadoolihan]

Or muddling our minds with non important and irrelevant problems .

[tumbling.dice]

I suppose most of us don't know how to make soap or candles, which plants to forage, how to find drinking water, how to build a shelter and so on. We just don't need that knowledge anymore, and even if we did we could look it up on YouTube. We've just gotten more efficient.

[Likahamadoolihan]

And if the internet went down ?
Or even if you lose your phone with all your contacts info?

[Din Djarin]

Likahamadoolihan that's why I download the internet every 6 months

[Audiogen]

Probably both smarter and dumber paradoxically. The ability and ease in which we access information and what Youfreeme mentioned probably makes us smarter overall, however, lots of stuff on tv and social media appeals to the lowest common denominator and that use of technology seems to pacify many people.

[neonspectraltoast]

The advent of technology has increased humanity's hubris, which has made us dumber by way of assuming we know anything, much less everything. No need to think outside the box when you have all the answers. We're totally impressed with ourselves. We don't need anything BUT technology.

[Meliai]

I read a study recently that showed we're less likely to remember information obtained from a smart phone versus reading it in a book. Our brain basically understands that the smart phone, and the internet, is an extension of our consciousness that we have access to 24/7, and so there isn't as much of a need to retain information that can be looked up again in a matter of seconds, versus learning something from a book we can't access again whenever we want.

I've been making attempts at learning how to identify mushrooms, trees, birds, and other elements of the natural world recently and I have noticed I'm more likely to retain information from a field guide versus the nature apps on my phone. But I'm not sure if that's just because my brain has been trained from years of schooling and book study to retain what it reads in an educational book, to look for mnemonic devices and what not

[Jessica]

i read a similar study showed that if we know information is stored on a computer file we won't remember the information, but we will remember where it's stored.

[lode]

Basically what YFM said. It's like saying anyone who can't start a fire with two sticks is dumb. They're skills which are no longer useful.

Before 1920's or whenever phones became common nobody remembered phone numbers.

[Chirp]

Never memorise anything you can look up- Albert Einstein

[6-eyed]

Losing or never forming specific skills isn't making us dumber. Memorizing a phone number or knowing how to cook or tie a knot doesn't really make you smart, it just means that you know how to do something. Technology allows us to allocate our mental energy differently than we used to.

If we so choose, technology enables us to spend countless extra hours solving new problems that we never had the capacity to solve before, since our time was consumed with many other tasks. I think a lot of the problems we are able to address today are the result of technology making our mundane tasks less effortful.

I can see yours and lode ‘s reasoning. But in a way, this is sort of like saying,

”Why learn mental math and long division when we have calculators?”

There’s a good reason why math is taught without calculators in grade school. It’s about training your brain to operate without the help of machines. Calculators come in handy for saving time.

In design school, the 101 classes taught drafting and tech drawing using pencils, rulers, compasses, and vellum paper. Even though no draftsman uses those anymore, and uses computers for all that, it’s still important to learn the old school way.

Rubbing sticks to make a fire might not be a daily skill, but it’s a skill worth having if you’re ever stranded without supplies

[Din Djarin]

So the conclusion so far seems to be: no, just the OP.

[Loverofcatsandfooty]

Nope...
Just you 6.

[Irminsul]

Put it this way.

Modern engineers can't build a pyramid as accurate as the Egyptians did.

/

[Tropical Breeze]

Lazier perhaps.

[Din Djarin]

Put it this way.

Modern engineers can't build a pyramid as accurate as the Egyptians did.

/

Arguable. It's just an awful big of an investment of time, labour forces and of course resources. Plus, the goal is just different now. We would be merely trying to reconstruct what the ancient egyptians did. They did it 1) for a higher goal, and 2) the ones building it didn't got to decide shit. It helps when the ones deciding its a higher goal have absolute authority

[Irminsul]

Yep, in my life time I got a better chance of seeing pigs fly.

^^^
Read that a bit more carefully than you normally would, because there's a lot of irony there.