As We Age, Smartphones Don't Make Us Stupid -- They're Our Saviors
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001094.html
Throughout human history, pretty much every development or invention
that increased our information storage and management capabilities has
had its loud and voracious naysayers.
Around 370 BCE, both Socrates and Plato were already badmouthing the
written word as inherently inferior to in-person verbal dialogue. The
printing press, typewriter, telegraph, telephone, and Internet have
all been targeted as the presumed bringers of universal intellectual
decay.
So it comes as no surprise that when Web search engines appeared on
the scene -- to organize Internet-based information and make it widely
available -- much the same tired old attack arguments were trotted out
by the usual suspects, in the form of multitudinous "Google Is making
Us Stupid!" articles and similar varieties of vacuous commentaries.
The crux of most arguments against having quick access to information
seem to largely parallel the attempts not that many years ago (and in
some venues, still continuing) to routinely ban calculators from
physics and other similar subject tests, on the grounds that not doing
the math by hand was somehow -- perhaps in a moral judgment "You'll go
to hell!" kind of sense -- horribly cheating.
But unless the test you're taking is specifically one for mathematical
skills, the rote manual calculation process is practically worthless
compared with developing the necessary skills to actually analyze a
problem and determining appropriate methodologies for reaching correct
answers. Even a specific answer itself may often be far less relevant
in many contexts than development and analysis of appropriate problem
solving processes.
One wonders how many potentially brilliant would-be physicists with
wonderful analytic skills were sidelined into other professions simply
due to not having a knack for manual math.
With the rise of the mobile Net comes the latest incarnation of this
twisted saga, the "Are smartphones making us stupid?" meme. There
seems to be a new version of this one somewhere pretty much every few
days.
In a very real way the term "smartphone" in this context is being used
by detractors largely as a proxy for saying "Portable Google" -- as a
wireless retread of search engine criticisms.
However, in this case the critics are even farther off the mark than
usual, because smartphones not only don't reduce our intelligence,
they can be our saviors as we age.
Physiological studies show that our memory for much specific data
usually begins to decline at the ripe old age of -- 20. Yeah, pretty
depressing. But in contrast, our reasoning and analytic skills can in
many cases continue developing throughout our lives without limit, as
we integrate ever more experiences into the mix.
And here is where the smartphone (along with the vast information
ecosystem that supports it) really becomes something of a
technological miracle.
For there on your belt or in your purse is a little box that can act
as an almost limitless adjunct to your own memory, to your own brain.
Type on it, talk to it. Ask it questions, note its reminders.
Smartphones can provide us with very much the exact kind of
information that our brains gradually become less adept at recalling
past age 20 or so.
To argue that it's somehow wrong, somehow cheating or unethical or
unnatural, to use these devices and their supporting infrastructures
in this way, is itself as dumb and stupid as forcing a potentially
brilliant future physicist to drop out of school because you wouldn't
let them use a calculator.
Obviously, for smartphones to be most useful at all ages, issues of
accessibility become paramount -- matters for ground-up consideration,
not after-the-fact excuses. Input and output methodologies, font sizes
and contrast, all become especially important, since our vision
typically begins to decline at the same young age as our memory. These
are all relatively straightforward user interface design issues
though, given the will to deal with them appropriately.
It would probably be a pretty tough slog to get Plato comfortable with
smartphones. On the other hand, he's quoted as saying: "We can easily
forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is
when men are afraid of the light." And especially when it comes to
smartphones and the immense value they can bring to us throughout our
lives, only a fool would argue with Plato about that.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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