Now social media says, “Hold my beer.”
I love these philosophical questions because they speak to the heart of what people are thinking and wondering about with respect to technology.
People are as smart or as dumb as they’ve always been. Some are smarter than others, and people have different strengths and weaknesses, but people are still people even with decades’ worth of computer use under our belts.
One thing that has changed is where and how we spend our time, energy, and attention, and the myriad of things competing for each.
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Computer-induced stupidity?
Computers don’t make us dumber; they free us to focus on new things by handling tasks we once did ourselves. The challenge today is managing distractions in an attention-driven world. Used well, technology helps us do more, be more, and explore more; our intelligence shifts to new strengths.
Computers help us do more
Using computers, we no longer have to do certain things that we’ve done in the past, at least not how we used to. We’re able to spend more of our time doing other things — things we would not have had the resources for in the past. Banking no longer requires a trip into town. Sending a letter is a simple job of typing it in and clicking “Send”. Writing, revising, and publishing manuscripts and books is not only more efficient, but in some cases possible only because we use online services instead of traditional.
Personally, I can do more and be more than ever before. That’s because I allow technology to do things I used to have to know and do myself, freeing up time and energy for other things.
It’s part of my philosophy. It’s at the top of my About page:
I help you use technology more effectively, giving you the confidence to do more, be more, and explore more of the world that today’s technology makes available to us all.
And that’s what I believe technology has to offer: the ability to do, be, and explore more than ever before.
Collateral damage
That also means some things may fall by the wayside or be less important than they once were. Things like:
- Handwriting — we now type or tap.
- Dictionaries — at least the physical ones; we have definitions at our fingertips online.
- Spelling — spellcheck to the rescue, and increasingly, grammar checkers that work.
- Letters — I stay significantly more connected with friends and family using technologies like email than I would have had I had to write a physical letter.
- Almost any activity that might be more easily, efficiently, or safely performed by technology.
I don’t think people are more or less intelligent than in the past. They’re just leveraging this wonderful tool. The computer is taking away the burden of having to know some things they’ve had to in the past, making room for new and exciting knowledge and accomplishments.
The rise of the attention economy
One thing that has dramatically affected the appearance of intelligence is the rise of attention-based services, most notably social media.
The culprit du jour, social media is blamed for many things, most critically the shortening of its users’ attention spans. As we consume mostly clickbait headlines without taking the time to dive deeper, we become less informed (or, tragically, more misinformed) than in years past.
Mike Maughan offered a different perspective on a recent episode of the No Supid Questions podcast.
I genuinely do not believe that our capacity has shrunk. I do believe that we’re sitting at this endless buffet of distraction.
Consider that the individual constantly distracted by social media can still focus intently when engaged in some activities. A teenager immersed in an online game, for example, is completely absorbed.
It’s not just that our attention spans have shrunk; it’s that there’s so much more distraction than ever before. Short-form content takes our attention and makes us more resistant to deeper, longer form content. Focus, as well as choosing what we should focus on, takes skills we don’t currently teach.
It’s not making us more stupid, per se, but it is making us less informed, and less thoughtful about what we do consume.
Reader perspectives
When I first published this essay, I asked this question of my Facebook audience. Some quotes:
As with any technology, we become stupider in some ways and smarter in others. … It’s not an either/or thing.
I’d say that people aren’t necessarily any dumber than they’ve always been, but computers and the internet make it so much easier to display one’s shortcomings quickly and to a much wider audience than in the past. (The bolding is mine, as this was an excellent point I’d missed. -Leo)
I love my computer and how this tool has helped me grow, but I also get out and live what I learn.
I find sooo much info on the Internet about thing I want to know, how could that possibly be making me more stupid?
Apparently in the 1400 & 1500s, the new mass technology, books, was suspect. As was writing in Plato’s time when it began to spread beyond the elite scribe…
I stretch my mind daily.
This does not mean computers are bad. They are merely tools that can be used for good or evil.
Do this
Realize that, as the last comment above pointed out, the computer is just a tool (as is social media), and it’s up to us to wield that tool properly. It may not be making us stupider, but it can certainly make it seem that way.
Have a thought on computer-induced stupidity? Let me know in the comments.
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I think the correct response should be “computers have gotten so ‘user friendly’ that even an idiot can use one — and many do”. :-)
As for your other comments…
I understand that some schools are doing away with handwriting classes, and are even dropping cursive entirely.
Yes, many people really don’t “need” to know the details of why something failed, but too many devices and programs nowadays have no way of telling someone even if they want/need to know. How many times have you tried to install a software package/upgrade, only to have it fail with nothing more than an “install failed” message? How many possible errors generate the single “check engine” notification? (Yes, the industry has finally gotten to a standard interface where you can buy a device to give you an error number, but how long did that take?)
The “problem”, IMHO, is that it’s gotten to the point that you don’t really need to know how something works in order to use it, and too many people don’t want to know.
The same final comment applies equally well to much of the “old” technology we use today. Consider the automobile, for example.
As technology continues to advance, our ability to repair or maintain that technology dwindles. In his youth, my father used to maintain his own car. If something stopped working, he knew roughly what was wrong and could either fix it or do enough to limp back to a garage to have someone qualified to look at it. These days, it takes a computer to tell you what is wrong with your car – by asking the computer under the bonnet what it knows.
Humans are not getting more stupid, they are getting more lazy. Why figure out something if you don’t have to? Why phone and talk to someone when you can tweet it? Why go outside when the ‘magic box’ can show you places you could never travel to?
Technology is isolating us from each other, under the guise of connecting us to everyone.
And yet cars seem to last a lot longer. It’s not uncommon to go well over 200,000 miles without problems. My old 1966 Volvo we had to rebuild the engine at a hundred thou. So I think things are getting better.
I don’t think I could disagree more. Not only does technology free me to do more than I ever thought possible, I also feel more connected to more people that ever. And I’m VERY certain that without this technology to do so I’d be much more isolated.
Technology doesn’t make us more stupid, just lazier in some areas. Your next to the last sentence is a good example. “My thanks to those who shared there thoughts there (I couldn’t include them all here).” The first “there” should be “their.” ;)
As Wendy mentioned, technology (especially computers) allow people to demonstrate their stupidity to a larger audience. How people use technology is a reflection of themselves. Consider other drivers on the road, people using cell phones in public places, or texting while driving. Read some of the posts on other sites (especially the tech sites mentioning Win 8) to see how stupid and ill-mannered some people are. Yet, they don’t think of how large an audience they really have.
Fixed the typo. Amazing how all those little things can slip past a number of eyes!
There’s an old saying that if you make a mistake, you won’t be able to find it. Ask 20 people for help, and they won’t find it either. The first person who comes by uninvited will spot it right off.
So true. :-)
There versus their is not a computer-related issue. Had I been hand-writing this I expect the same mistake would have been made.
Are people getting more stupid? It depends on how you define stupid. I don’t believe that people are getting any less intelligent but I do believe that most people have lost the capacity for critical thinking. Too many people are willing to let others do their thinking for them. They accept the vast amount of information that is fed to them daily without applying even the most basic bullshit test. All that is required is whether or not that information agrees with what they already believe to be true. Greta Christina often poses the question “don’t you care whether or not what you believe is true?” Surprisingly, the answer from most of us is “not really”.
While I agree with your comment – that people are losing the capacity for true critical thinking – I don’t blame technology for that. It’s more of a societal issue, in my opinion.
I’m 31. I can read, write and perform arithmetic, even though I’ve been around computers and calculators my whole life. Computer is to a pencil and paper what a chainsaw is to an axe. 100 years ago man carried a sharpened wedge mounted to a stick into the woods and felled a tree. Today a man carries a chainsaw and fells the same tree in a lot less time, and he can probably fell a tree with an axe too, maybe not as quickly as a man who has more experience with an axe, but he can still do it if he needs to.
Like Einstein said in 1935, ” If we get more technology we will soon be raising a world of idiots.” And if we look around today we’ll see it all over, in third grade they were taught Multication and Division, and I have to teach them the same thing all over again in fifth grade before they go to middle school, everyone actually believes they’re going to become Rock Stars…..
Can you really blame the youth? Who gets more attention and better pay; Rock Stars or geniuses?
Stardom is ephemeral…genius forms the generations following it for ages.
You misspelled a word, that was funny
I think they make people impatient. The number of posts I have read on forums where people are whining and complaining about a fews seconds it takes to start up their computer. Makes me want to reach out and slap someone. :-)
I disagree with the notion that BIOS shouln’t need to be dealt with. BIOS provides a user with the most basic understanding of their hardware’s interactions and ultimately provides the insght to diagnose the various systems…what could be more beneficial than understanding this important device to the point of being able to bring it back from downtime more quickly?
BIOS is like CPR-everyone should know it well.
Hi Steven,
Having spent over 30 years in the Information Systems arena, one would think I had plenty of reasons to become familiar with BIOS, especially since I have been using PCs for over 20 years. Quite the contrary, I have never felt a compelling need to delve into the hidden mysteries of Windows. Similarly, I never felt the need to learn how to overhaul a car engine or replace a transmission.
That may make me ignorant, but a happy one at that.
The BIOS is before Windows. Maybe you meant the registry.
I read a quote once “technology just makes people stupid in new ways”.
Out of all the comments that I read, only one had a perfectly written sentence. Therefor, the people that think computers are helping them, are obviously mistaken. There were plenty of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. What does this say about people being lazy or stupid? Or perhaps they never learned these things in school for whatever reason. Very seldom do I read a book, a newspaper, or anything else without finding at least one of the above mistakes.
Hi Sarah,
You may want to look into the difference between therefor and therefore. :-)
Don’t think it’s an issue of people getting dumber, it’s an issue of people becoming more progressively dependent on technology for our day to day – if you know how to access it, you can gain a wealth of knowledge to increase and hone your skill set, even being able to pull in pro tips and over-the-shoulder vantage points off youtube on how to get a job done, as an example. So, you can kind of become a “specialist” in a few things, rather than a jack-of-all trades (where you kind of have to be self-reliant to be handy) rather than selling and bartering your service. This is what our parents and grandparents had over us, they could fix what they broke, we on the other hand are either buying a new one or calling the repair guy. Think it’s making us more helpless, if anything.
Don’t forget the old quote:
“When you make something idiot-proof, the World develops a better class of idiot”
I reckon the last one from Bob rings true for me – don’t know whether its’ my vintage years, but I always seem to be left far behind in the tech race….struggling & crawling to keep up the pace with changes.
Cheers
Are we getting more stupid? Most of the comments above are based on personal belief, such as “I don’t believe people are getting more stupid.” Interestingly, some scientists, however, disagree with that premise.
A recent study finds that intelligence of Westerners has declined 14 I.Q. points since the Victorian era. Read for yourself at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/people-getting-dumber-human-intelligence-victoria-era_n_3293846.html.
The study is based on the fact that “women of high intelligence tend to have fewer children than women of lower intelligence.”
Interestingly, this lowering of “inherited” intelligence tends to be somewhat offset by “environmental factors, such as better education, hygiene and nutrition.”
Does all this mean that while the average intelligence quotient slowly declines, science may come to our rescue? After all it is mainly due to computers that we eat, live and breathe better than ever before. So my conclusion is that while we may be getting stupider by the day, computers are coming to our rescue.
P.S. My faithful companion, my laptop, found at least 15 spelling errors in my brief treatise. Hurray for computers!