How Technology Is Making You Dumb?

Technology has made our lives a lot more comfortable and easier, but some people believe that it is also making us dumb. There is a growing concern that future generations will become increasingly dependent on technology and may permanently lose some of the abilities that older generations had. To understand this better, let’s take a look at some of the identifiable areas where technology is making us dumb.

Memorize things: Most of us no longer make efforts to remember the things that we come across. If one needs such information, one just Googles it to get the answers. This has become a habit and according to research studies, it is impacting our memory cells. It appears that using the search engines has become a lot easier than making efforts to memorize things. We are also not required to remember other important things such as phone numbers, work deadlines, meeting schedules, passwords, etc. Everything is stored digitally and made available to us whenever we need it.

Explore and navigate: Our primitive ancestors were good explorers, as they needed it to find food and shelter for their survival. In the present day, we appear to be losing our sense of exploration and navigation, since there’s no real need for the same. Moreover, if we need to go someplace, we have become habitual to using maps on our mobile devices. Some experts have opined that future generations may even find it difficult to navigate through their own city in the absence of GPS and maps.

Recognize emotions: Our kids are getting addicted to mobile devices and its adversely impacting their social skills. Studies have revealed that kids who spend excessive time on digital devices are finding it difficult to recognize social and emotional cues. This is a cause for concern since the human civilization is built upon a social framework, an indispensable part of our survival and evolution.

Speech development: A recent research has revealed that toddlers who spend more time using mobile devices experience delay in speech development. The more the time spent on mobile devices, the more was the increase in risk of delay in speech development. Every time a toddler uses a mobile device for 30 minutes, it increases their risk of delayed speech development by almost 50 percent. The American Academy of Pediatrics has already recommended that children below 18 months should not be using mobile devices.

Think clearly: Even the most trivial things spread like wild fire in the digital world. And we seldom care or try to find the truth behind a trending story or viral video. This is impacting our ability to differentiate between right or wrong. Crime, unrest, dissatisfaction, indifference, and intolerance are already hitting new highs, which has a lot to do with our diminishing ability to understand, analyze and interpret. Powerful people are using this to their advantage, as has been revealed in recent investigations against certain analytics firms and social media platforms.

So, should you stop using technology? Well, probably not! Simply because it’s not feasible in the times we live. However, you can certainly try to limit your dependence on technology. If you want to retain your intelligence and have some fun, try doing things on your own whenever possible.