Will technology make us dumber?

People like to think that Evolution only moves in the direction towards greater and greater complexity, and that Humanity, as we are, are perfect beings living on a perfect planet. I wish I could sue very school district in the United States. Rant aside..

The human brain requires a lot of energy to run smoothly. Go 1 day without eating or sleeping. Simple tasks become increasing harder as time goes on. After a while your body will begin to eat itself in order to feed your organs. A persons powerful brain is expensive, and when you think about it, overkill. If the point of being smart is to survive in the jungle against predators x times bigger than yourself, what is the point of being able to look at the night sky and wonder "if we're alone". Or being able to look in a mirror and wonder "Why am I here". The point I'm making is that the human brain is very expensive, and doesn't have to do in order for us to survive.

What this means is that if we use less and less of our brain, eventually evolution will spent that energy elsewhere. "Use it or lose it", as they say. Much of what we do as humans isn't processed in our brains anymore. There is no need to remember information. We can google it. There is no need to remember a persons phone number. Simple call them once, and their number is saved in your phone forever. The downside to this is that we on the person to person level don't use our brains like we did 100 or so years ago. Therefore over time humanity will be able to access knowledge, but the person will be less capable of maintaining it. Amiright or nah?

 

I do not believe it will make us dumber. The massive amount of information should actually make us more intelligent. However it is likely our bodies will not be as physically strong several hundred years from now if we survive that long.

I can see how we might lose survival skills with the dependency on just going to the store to get all our needs. Raising animals, farming, hunting, and fishing is a hobby to some but the learned skills are not as common as in the past. To most it just arrives at the store like magic.

 

I'm gonna say nah, because our energy pools are higher than ever. We have more than enough to eat, and we don't have to expend much energy getting it. Combined with the fact that we don't do much physically, and all we have to spend our nutrition on is brainpower. Not saying that we won't actually BE dumber, but I don't think it will be because of evolution, but because of intentional dumbing down by rulers who want to keep us in line.

 

The one aspect of technology that's helping dumb down the public in my opinion is the vast majority of reality TV shows like Honey Boo Boo, or Real Housewives, Jersey Shore, ect... The people I've met who look forward to this crap on a weekly basis are the definition of low information voters.

 

probably. there is a link between cognitive challenges and IQ. I know we all like to pretend that things like computers give us more to be smarter with, but let's face it, we, myself included, are becoming addle minded because of it. Don't even know how to spell words as long as you get close enough for the computer to fix them for us.

 

Will technology make us dumber? No, that is the job of the government.

 

Well....I agree that kids today can't seem to add, subtract or divide never mind some being able to give you the right change if the Register is not able to calculate it for them!! LOL!!!

The worse thing that DUMB'S A KID DOWN is INACTIVITY!!!

A person's Brain needs proper blood flow and a proper supply of Oxygen to work properly never mind at capacity and as my JOB requires a great deal of thinking as well as a great deal of Physical Ability I find I can think much better and easier when I continue to RUN daily.

If I happen to take a weekend off from Running either to Party and for me getting drunk is not easy as by metabolism processes alcohol quickly do to all the running....but if I were to sit on my ass drinking for a weekend I notice a marked difference in my ability to think and process.

Now think about all those FAT KIDS sitting in front of a Computer 24/7 with HOT POCKETS coming out their ears!!

Sad.

AboveAlpha

 

Whether you are right or not depends on variables. If we continue to advance and find new technologies such as new energy sources and our economies support that search then no we are probably better off with relying on technology to aid our brains, if however (as one variable) say the sun decides to act up and a massive solar flare wipes out our electrical grid, then those who are better prepared (smarter and rely on their brains over technology) to grow their own food or defend themselves when people come looking for food (survival skills) will survive. Most however will not survive the month.
That's the funny part about evolution some of us are the tech type and some of us are in the middle and some of us are the anti tech type. Depending on what the variables are decides which one is correct. Whatever cant go on doesn't. Earth sorts this out every now and then. Dinosaurs ruled for millions of years and for that time it seemed like a good idea to be a dinosaur right up until an asteroid hit. Then it was better to be smaller. We wouldn't be here now if an asteroid hadn't impacted the earth. The same will be our fate one day. Its like climate change, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it except adapt. Based on the last Hurricane where we couldn't even distribute gasoline into areas of one city and we didn't help our fellow man when they needed it most, we instead earmarked and distributed generators to vendors in order to run a road race rather the neighborhoods where people were without power for days. The odds of the human race surviving any even small global crisis is 0.
Even if you do use your brain over technology, are you prepared to survive 100% without going to the grocery store for a month? If not youre not using it that much anymore. So.....depends. Me Im gonna go with technology and run the odds that the earth will remain stable for the next 30-40 years or so. My guess though at some point over population and famine will be the deathblow for humans. A brain only takes you so far, when there is no food for it, you die. In the same events the unthinking, non computer using, non electricity using, non google searching insects will feast on our dead carcasses proving the brain was just another interesting evolutionary test that failed.

 

Human's who have the best chance of survival in the event of a Global Catastrophe are people that have a combination of specific Genetically specific Physical Attributes as well as Intelligence specific to innovation, creativity and engineering and having a bit of knowledge of agriculture sure helps.

I have a large Organic Garden every year and I use the grass clippings from my yard and place them over the limed tilled soil and plant through the grass clippings as this not only holds back weeds but as the grass clippings decay it heats up and provides the plants with warmth and Nitrogen as it acts as a fertilizer.

I am aware of a few things such as how plants in the Nightshade Family such as Tomatoes, Peppers and Eggplant should not be grown in areas where the year before other Nightshade plants grew as well as understanding how spacing...planting flowering plants such as Asters, Zinnia and Marigolds attract Bee's to pollinate the garden and how to eliminate pests in a wide number of ways.

Most people don't realize if this is done right the huge bounty even a small garden can produce and my garden produces so much I donate a great amount of produce to the local Open Pantry which provides food to those in need and I still have more than enough for myself, family and friends.

AboveAlpha

 

Excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_Gs7Vik75k

 

yep Im always surprised at the amouny of food we get out of ours and lets face it...picked veggies right before dinner doesnt get any better and its free!

 

This. My professors with PhDs in hard sciences have a difficult time spelling words if they don't spell check their powerpoints. I'm not saying tech is a bad thing, but what happens when a solar flare knocks us "offline"? Our society would fall apart in hours.

 

It already has. Now days kids dont try to remember anything. They just go to their smart phones for answers.

 

I am always amazed when I pick the Summer Squash and Zucchini and then the next morning there are like 20 more ready to pick!! LOL!!

Summer Squash and Zucchini and Onion with fresh Basil and Oregano thin sliced and fried in a pan with butter!!

YUM!!!

AboveAlpha

 

I wonder if when writing was invented, people would wonder if that would make us dumber. After all, no need to memorize a poem, it can be written down, less energy for the brain to use.........

We use our brains differently. I wouldn't say we use our brains less.

 

Studies have shown that average IQ is going up.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444032404578006612858486012
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter.aspx

That said, I think it just indicates that we do better on the strange little things that IQ tests test.

 

Then we must have a lot of people somewhere with IQ's in the millions to offset dumb butts I encounter on a daily basis (myself included)

 

I don't think technology makes us dumber, but I do think it's a tool that has shifted a lot of learning from kids asking why to kids leaning how. Kids learn quickly how to plug variables into a calculator to complete their homework, but they fail to refine their basic skills in doing so. For example, ask a teenager to complete a large division problem by hand and on paper. Watch how long the steps take them to complete as they go back to the foundations of multiplication of single integers, subtraction and borrowing/carrying. They know they've done it before, but it's not natural to them to do it, at least not quickly. They can bang it out on their phone or a calculator, but that's because they know how to get the answer but they never really took the time in schools to be taught the why of each step that takes place along the way.

Our education standards are dropping and pushing kids to an education that makes them memorize in order to pass a state assessment does nothing to teach them, nor does anything I have seen in my 4 kids' work prompt them to ask the most fundamental question in academia...."WHY?" They don't learn handwriting skills, particularly cursive, they don't do math, at least complex math, by hand, and they do little in the way of homework that reinforces their skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It's evident in stores when someone has to make change without the benefit of electronics, and that blank stare you get when you assist them is the proof that they just don't have the basic foundation of what we all need in life.

I could go on. It's pathetic that we turn out kids to become doctors and nurses, yet they can't perform many things without electronics in today's world. We've let the electronics take over the "why" and we just teach the "how"...and it's all to the detriment of children.

 

If evolution or technology is going to make us dumber as a race its going to have to get it done pretty soon. In another 20 years we will have hijacked the entire process. We'll be able to "evolve" however we want.

 

IQ does not mean a measurement of intelligence. It's actually a measure of how a person does on school-related information processing tasks. IMHO, it has some correlation with intelligence, but not a lot.

 

And weaker? And less able to be social? I read a recent report that by 2025 many physical work places will be gone to save money and many, many people will telework from home, and never have to leave their house.

Many of my co-workers are cheering and exited! Me, it makes sad and scared and glad that I will be near to it or retired by then! I don't want to work from home, I WANT TO WAKE UP, GET DRESSED AND GO OUT SOMEWHERE!

We have a system in place now, where we can work from home one day per week, I choose not to do it, I don't want to be at home, I want to leave the house EVERY DAY! And if I want to stay home, I have the weekends.

What kind of people will we be if we have people spend entire careers, 30-40 years never leaving the house, never getting out of their pajamas and never meeting thei co-workers in person?

 

Not to worry. In a few years telecommuting will transmute into a virtual office where you'll be able to be at the office without leaving the house. Just plug into the Matrix and you're there.

 

Can you still do long division? I can still work my 1960s-vintage slide rule for at least basic functions.

 

I think you have an elementary understanding of human evolution, but not history.

Were we smarter or stronger before we invented the wheel? Not *really*.

We forget how we use to do things, we don't become integrally dumber.

EDIT: I edit to expand my earlier statement on your elementary understanding of human evolution. What you've referred to is actually adaptation, and you've referred to it as evolution. It's not the same thing. Nor does microevolution work like adaptation
With the passage of time we use our mental faculties MORE, not less.

 

I can still do it, but it's an obsolete skill. I can pull out my phone (even a dumb phone) and have the calculation done in a few seconds with less chance of error.