Use the original smart phone - and make your kids do it, too
Educators who work with children, like myself, have been observing what has seemed like a decline in cognitive processes and in general intelligence over the last five years, in particular. Now, evidence shows that indeed, people are becoming less smart.
One science writer made a comment similar to something that I've been saying for a while now, that when we outsource our brain to a technological device, we lose our own capacity for thinking. In other words, we become more dumb.
Another problem is multi-tasking, which keeps the information we do encounter from being stored in our memories. As a result, people are becoming more forgetful, and have shorter attention spans.
Those who have greater knowledge have more ability to be creative, which will be more valuable in the future if current trends continue:
To be a creative and imaginative thinker is to develop original and useful products—whether physical or ideational. To develop these ideas, we need to have a knowledge base that will allow our brains to connect different stores of information. Maria Popova eloquently describes why we need to have a large fund of knowledge to be creative:
"The idea that in order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles."
The key is to have a strong fund of knowledge to spark imagination and develop creative thoughts. Your brain takes familiar information and assembles it in new ways. If you don’t have that information easily available—because of Alexa, Siri, or Hey Google—you won’t come up with those creative thoughts and new ideas that will differentiate you from the robots.
Research indicates that retrieval practice is one of the best methods to learn information. If you aren’t trying to retrieve information and bring it to your thoughts—instead of pulling out your phone—this may be problematic for not only a general fund of knowledge but also for the ability to initiate creative contemplations in the future.
Adults can start by getting off technology. Then, stop using phones and tech as babysitters for children. Putting a phone in a child's hands because it will keep them quiet is a short-term solution. But because their brains are still developing, that strategy causes long-term damage, as they become addicted to the constant stimulation.
Curbing the burgeoning idiot effect will take effort and time - and it will require people to actually engage with one another again, as well as read. The question is, now that humans know the convenient short cut of technology, will they be willing to put in the work to divest a bit?
I'm afraid the answer is no for most people, because humans are biologically programmed to take the easy way out. But those who care, those who want to step off of the addictive tech train, those who want their minds back and those - like myself - who have been watching the decline of the human brain with alarm: we may just be the hope of the future.
Keep reading.
One science writer made a comment similar to something that I've been saying for a while now, that when we outsource our brain to a technological device, we lose our own capacity for thinking. In other words, we become more dumb.
Another problem is multi-tasking, which keeps the information we do encounter from being stored in our memories. As a result, people are becoming more forgetful, and have shorter attention spans.
Those who have greater knowledge have more ability to be creative, which will be more valuable in the future if current trends continue:
To be a creative and imaginative thinker is to develop original and useful products—whether physical or ideational. To develop these ideas, we need to have a knowledge base that will allow our brains to connect different stores of information. Maria Popova eloquently describes why we need to have a large fund of knowledge to be creative:
"The idea that in order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles."
The key is to have a strong fund of knowledge to spark imagination and develop creative thoughts. Your brain takes familiar information and assembles it in new ways. If you don’t have that information easily available—because of Alexa, Siri, or Hey Google—you won’t come up with those creative thoughts and new ideas that will differentiate you from the robots.
Research indicates that retrieval practice is one of the best methods to learn information. If you aren’t trying to retrieve information and bring it to your thoughts—instead of pulling out your phone—this may be problematic for not only a general fund of knowledge but also for the ability to initiate creative contemplations in the future.
Adults can start by getting off technology. Then, stop using phones and tech as babysitters for children. Putting a phone in a child's hands because it will keep them quiet is a short-term solution. But because their brains are still developing, that strategy causes long-term damage, as they become addicted to the constant stimulation.
Curbing the burgeoning idiot effect will take effort and time - and it will require people to actually engage with one another again, as well as read. The question is, now that humans know the convenient short cut of technology, will they be willing to put in the work to divest a bit?
I'm afraid the answer is no for most people, because humans are biologically programmed to take the easy way out. But those who care, those who want to step off of the addictive tech train, those who want their minds back and those - like myself - who have been watching the decline of the human brain with alarm: we may just be the hope of the future.
Keep reading.
Comments
Post a Comment