Gene Weingarten has a great piece on technology and what it does to our intelligence. I’ve often been suprised that so many of my students have trouble doing math in their heads, and I attribute it to reliance on calculators. We don’t need to be good at math because we have those little calculators.
Weingarten humorously suggests that many Americans can’t spell well because they don’t need to. They have spell checkers.
So is technology making us dumber, or are we just learning different things? Have I become the old curmudgeon who thinks everyone was smarter when he was young, or are kids not learning certain basic skills as well? I’m honestly not sure.
Good questions.
I don’t know if tech is making us stupid, but it may be changing the way we approach learning and thinking about things. And when tools come along that make one task easier, it seems so natural to gravitate towards it (ie, calculators).
What we need to keep in mind is that being able to do mental math is more than calculation — it stirs those little neurons, makes connections in our brains in other ways and allows us to move into more discrete thinking.
Adios
Kevin
PS — I will be sure to check out the article.