Janet CollinsTraining Us Not To Think
December 27th 2009 23:04
Technology that does our thinking for us has long term implications for the health of the mind just as technology that has had us bound to our chairs can be a challenge to our weight and our physical fitness. So why do we embrace technology that does our thinking for us?
I can remember the jokes and comments about the remote control when it first came into our lives. No longer did we have to even get up from our seats to switch on the television or even change channels. We could sit in a chair all night and watch the TV if we wanted to.
Technology has advanced a lot since then of course and most of it has allowed us to be chair-bound all day long if we want to be. Then we go to the gym to work out. Quite ironic don’t you think?
The same irony can apply to technology doing our thinking for us. We only have to go back to the calculator to see that. Once, calculators were not allowed in exams for example but now it is just standard practice.
The argument for these was always that the exams were more about how we worked things out rather than the eventual answer and calculators were available in the “real world” so they should be allowed in exams. Even in the working world, cash registers once didn’t add the amount for us and certainly didn’t tell us what change to give. We had to work it out.
Technology can nowadays do a lot more that add up and multiply. My phone stores my numbers so I don’t even have to remember them. My computer can store any sort of information I want it to so I don’t have to find it again. It can even date my letters or emails for me and store all my email addresses.
Even more evolutionary are the google maps and whereis sites or the GPS navigational equipment in the car that have more or less relegated our street directories to the scrap heap. Yes, I no longer even have to read a map or work out how to get anywhere. Technology can do this for me.
Then we hear experts telling us how to keep our minds active to prevent brain disease such as Alzheimer’s or Dementia. Many people take up crosswords and Bridge and Sudoku on this advice fearing they will become another statistic. Even Nintendo brought out a brain training device that promised to keep the brain thinking. Experts have widely challenged the merits of the brain training game but keeping a mind active in any way would have to do us more good than bad, just as exercising the body can keep us more agile and physically fit.
My parents generation have now reached or are reaching the age when many fall prey to these diseases, if they haven’t already and with many people living longer than ever before, the statistics are bound to increase. My father is in his 80s now but this non-thinking world was not available to him. If that generation is slipping slowly away to these diseases what hope is there for the rest of us?
If we really need to keep our minds active, technology is probably doing us a big disservice in the end. They will have to come up with solutions that can do more than keep the brain thinking. Someone will have to come up with something that can teach everyone to use their brains in the first place because it is something many of today’s generation will not have learned to do.
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