I do not subscribe to the notion of de-skilling as applied to this context. Throughout human history, tools have continued evolving, making difficult and time-consuming tasks easier and quicker. I don't see atrophy in the brain muscles or any lack of mental calisthenics at all. Nor is it evident to me that stopping a particular activity leads to any weakening of brain power.
I mean, if it's not maps, it's something else that picks up in the vacuum. There was a time during my early education when calculators were that big devolution device in the classroom - huge debate about letting calcs in vs. making students work out the math on paper. Eventually calculators became acceptable where they weren't before, but there isn't any evidence that kids are fundamentally dumber (or smarter) due to calculators, nor do students sit around for lack of learning opportunities in the extra time. Same is true for human reaction to each successively more capable device in any arena. Are we worse off for declined abacus usage? What about the use of auto-focus or auto-exposure on cameras? Or not building a radio? Or not manually tuning one? If anything, sometimes keeping the old around just serves to muddle the new. Why the heck do we need f-stop values or film-speeds on digital cameras, and not more relevant units of measure? Sure it's great to have map-deciphering skills. But just like I'm not too worried about the lack of my fire-starting skills in the wild, I just don't see a big deal about losing hitherto useful skills if they are made redundant by improving tools. If students can now obtain reliable geo-guidance on their iPhones, so much the better. Who's stopping the adventurous types from exercising their survival skills? It would be a problem however, if humans were inclined to kick back on the basis of newly improved tools, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Neural pathways will always be stimulated. -Peyush "Some of my disturbance comes from concern that, if students don't have to look at a map and learn where a room or building is, perhaps they never learn to "figure out" those types of things. IE, perhaps we encourage devolution by accepting such heavy reliance on a replacement for brain-power and the mental calisthenics by which such power is developed and nourished. ...Left unstimulated, neural pathways go dark." ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
