Are we becoming dumber as devices are becoming smarter?

Are we becoming dumber as devices are becoming smarter?

As technology progresses in leaps and bounds with each passing day, we finder “smarter” ways to do almost everything. As a consequence, we are constantly plagued with the question, as to whether smarter devices are inhibiting us from giving our grey cells a much needed workout? To really examine the question at hand we need to first understand what we mean “smarter” devices and how we evaluate the smartness of humans.

If I pull up a definition of smart devices from the internet, this is what I find:-

A smart device is an electronic device, generally connected to other devices or networks via different wireless protocols such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G, etc., that can operate to some extent interactively and autonomously.

The most common example that comes to mind would be a smartphone. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We have entered an era of digital assistants, smart locks, robot vacuums and fitness tracking watches amongst other things. As life becomes easier day by day or app by app, is our increased dependency on smart devices leaving us less smarter?

Smartness of humans isn’t something that’s well defined. Intelligence can be measured with IQ however a more comprehensive evaluation would only be complete if we considered EQ(emotional quotient). And so I would like to evaluate the effect of smart devices in our lives by considering the following parameters that can be associated with IQ or EQ:-

Memory:- We have data bases full of phone numbers, birthdays and search engines to pull up facts within the matter of seconds and as a result we don’t feel the need to remember these things. We are constantly looking for ways to expand the free memory available on our devices and thereby diminishing our memory power.

Social interactions:- The rise of social networking has undoubtedly made the world a smaller place but however it has done no good to our interactions in person. A lot of people take comfort behind a screen and have no trouble talking to others over the internet but it’s this very nature of theirs that makes it hard for them to exhibit the same charisma in person. Over the internet we don’t have to worry about eye contact or body language, which are major factors in our interactions with people.

Critical thinking skills:- Studies show that our attention span has fallen drastically in the recent years. We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with notifications from various apps and streams of information that gets updated by the second. It’s no doubt that we find it difficult to focus our attention on any one particular thing. Attention span is a very vital part of our critical thinking skills. Critical thinking involves assessing and analyzing problems and so wavering focus can immensely lower our critical thinking skills.

Creativity:- The internet has become a hub to display creative talents. With multiple platforms being opened up online, people who claim to be right brain dominant have a fantastic outlet for their creativity. Muses crop up on the internet day after day. And as a result occupations in the creative field that didn’t exist a decade or two ago are now becoming increasingly popular like Youtubing for example.

As people are becoming increasingly aware of the age of digital dumbness that is dawning upon the human population, apps and devices are being redesigned to prevent this intelligence apocalypse.

For example:-

The QAMAS calculator works as any other calculator except for the fact that it requires you to input an expected answer as well. If the expected answer is in close range to the actual answer it will display the correct answer or else it will not show an answer. After all the underlying mathematical principles are not to be forgotten.

We can conclude that we aren’t exercising our grey cells as we should be due to technological aid in almost every field of life. But however it comes down to how we chose to use technology. We can either allow it to cause our natural human skills to rust away or to oil the cog wheels that run our minds. The choice is yours. A smarter click on your smartphone can make you smarter.