Do Gadgets Degrade Our Common Sense? 311
ShelleyPortet writes "In a world where gadgets are growing more sophisticated, human behavior is changing — and not in a good way. That is what Robert Vamosi, author of When Gadgets Betray Us argues in his book, which examines the dangers of our growing dependence on technology. As gadgets develop the ability to multitask seemingly endless functions, Vamosi argues that people are increasingly unable to think for themselves. 'Instead of lifting our heads, looking around and thinking for ourselves,' Vamosi writes, some of us no longer see the world as human beings have for thousands of years and simply accept whatever our gadgets show us."
People have always been stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Death by GPS (Score:5, Insightful)
These Gadgettess do Perverte the Republice (Score:5, Insightful)
It is with great pleasure that I read the learned words of this amiable scholar, Mr. Vamosi. It is thus prooved that the Gadgette may be more of a threate to the mind of our Republice than the gallopping steamship or railroad loco-motive. Tell me, in what respect may the Gadgette hope to improve upon the brain given us by our creator? Did He make our human brains to be cleverer than himself, and master over Him? If ye say "No," then how can ye say that we are then so wise and skillful as to make a Gadgette to be clever than ourselves and master over us? This is as ridiculous as the old familiar question: "Can our Lord and Creator microwave a Burrito so scaldingly hot that even He Himself cannot taste of it?" Nay, presume not that the creator (whether our Heavenly master or our own intellect) can ever be led by his creation into any realm except that of the Doomed Abyss. Thus, Gentlemen of the Republice, cast ye Gadgettes into the sea -- lest they hang about they neck as a great millstone -- and drag ye down to the depths!!
Not sure I completely agree (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's gadgets degrading common sense, it's our physiology working against us; the human body really doesn't do more than it has to. If you don't use muscle it goes away, if you drink too much coffee you're basically dysfunctional before your first cup of the day, I don't remember half as many phone numbers as I used to since I stated carrying an address book, etc. Those gadgets just provide a gateway for our minds and bodies to seek the path of least resistance.
A big misnomer (Score:3, Insightful)
History is full of this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Technological advances of this nature leverage human abilities allowing human productivity to increase.
It is in large measure how civilization advances. When the moldboard plow was invented humans were able to plant more land. This made more food available and hunger decreased. Yeah people probably became weaker as a result of having to do less grunt labor. But was the overall effect bad?
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking."
--Alfred North Whitehead
Amiga 500 (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember drawing on it and thinking: "The generation that comes after me will be like gods of technology. They'll have been born with this in their hands and it will bring them to new levels of intelligence, tech and opportunity."
This is just not the case now 25+yrs later. I work a great deal with teens teaching them tech from an art and theater end. What I find is that they know how to use the front end with incredible alacrity and skill. However once that tech has a glitch or fails them they're dumb founded. Yes, I am generalizing, but I've found an overwhelming majority lack even the basic sense to trouble shoot. At best they just let it sit until someone fixes it. At worst I've seen them toss cell phones and laptops in the dumpster because it was broke. (And I was able to retrieve it and fix it later.) It's that lack of trouble shooting ability that is the key to me. They've never been taught to do that. It's not just the tech that is different for them vs. me it's the societal thinking. You do not fix stuff now and keep using it. You toss it out and buy new. And that has deprived them of the desire, curiosity and ability to think creatively and trouble shoot.
While the complexity of the tech has grown since my first introduction, with an almost perfect inverse the ignorance of that same tech's fundamental workings has grown. Your results may vary, but this seems to be the same experience with a broad scope of my friends and colleagues as well. I personally do not see it getting any better. It's created wonderful consumers and that's just what the market wants.
Re:Ya, right (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say the issue is the thinking that if it's written down, I don't need to learn it. I can always refer to it later. Even more so with Smartphones and the Internet.
Knowing things helps you solve problems, create new things, etc. If people say, "If I need to know it, I'll just look it up" it may not be too far away that we don't know what to look up because we can't even make the basic connections between subjects.
Force Multiplier (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a brilliant scientist, you can use it to do even greater, more important work.
If your a tyrannical dictator, you can use to to further oppress and control your citizens.
If you're a blithering idiot you can stare at it as you plow your car into a group of children waiting for a buss.
Re:Stupid people used to die young. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone "used to die young". Look, humans reach reproductive capability in their teens. There's plenty of time to be stupid before you die if you can reproduce after only 13 or 14 years of existence, and in pre-industrial revolution human history, people often did. Your complaints about "lowering the average" and "failing to give their children values" are old claims-- probably as old as the ideas of "average" and "values".
Education is strongly correlated with a better quality of life (and if you don't strongly suspect that there is some causal relationship there-- well, you're being obtuse). Everybody born in the United States is now entitled to (and, in fact, required to have) that education, by law. Almost everyone in this country can read and do basic arithmetic. Life is way better now than quite frankly any time in human history. I fail to see how humans are now more stupid or in any way worse off.
Now, if you argue that our best aren't as good as they used to be-- you may have a point. But I'd still take many smart people over a few geniuses any day.
Re:Death by GPS (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is, technology and specialization have placed us far beyond self-sufficiency at this point. You don't really know how your food is grown, how your home is constructed, how your car works, or what happens when you flip a light switch. You think you do, but you couldn't reconstruct all that from scratch if you found yourself alone on an island, not in a 1000 lifetimes. So I don't see why we would suddenly draw an arbitrary line to exclude GPS or other "gadgets."
Re:Amiga 500 (Score:5, Insightful)
How old were you when you got you Amiga?
How nerdy were you? Good grades, honor program, pocket protector and horn-rims?
How many other people got an Amiga?
Now consider how smart, geeky, nerdy, inquisitive your fellow peers were at that time. I'm not talking about your friends, I'm talking about the typical joe blow.
You are dealing with the median. Everyone handles technology now-a-days. If you interacted with the nerds at computer camp, you'd have a different view. The top 10% remains just as rare today as it was then.
So the generation that came after you is god-like in their tech and opportunity, but the intelligence remains as a bell-curve.
This again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Another disillusioned techie writes another anti-tech book about the way technology has made the general public dumber than it already is. Film at eleven.
People were, by and large, already dumber than rocks. This is, after all, the same species that wandered around in its current form for about 200,000 years before anyone noticed that seeds make plants, and only figured out in the last century or so that disease is caused by microorganisms and not evil spirits -- and still, a lot of people aren't convinced. The only thing that has changed is that people who previously did or said stupid things in private can now share them with the world on Facebook and YouTube.
That said, it's nice to see that the author is is a technology professional. Most of these books are written by liberal arts majors who are embittered by the presence of iPhones at their poetry slams.
Stupid - at the speed of light (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with the premise. I think people have always had this problem. The thing about these "gadgets", as he calls them, is that they spread information faster and farther than was ever possible before. I just encountered this today with a forwarded email I received, from a very conservative friend, which stated that Sears is now selling X-rated DVDs. Without even looking into the situation, he just forwarded it on to all his friends adding the note, "Kinda sad because they sell great tools." It only took a few minutes for me to go to the Sears site and see that the email is a fabrication. It took only a few minutes more to discover that this is from an American Family Association (who?) alert sent out last year about "pornographic" art being sold at Sears -- which turned out to actually be pretty tasteful wall decor featuring nude bodies (not exactly my cup of tea, but to each his own). Even though it only took a few minutes to discover the hoax, it was easier for my friend to simply accept the news as the truth, and then angrily forward the information along to everyone he knows. However, if this were 1911 instead of 2011 and my friend had heard this rumor via word-of-mouth, he would have done the same thing -- that is, pass the rumor along without checking facts. People have always been stupid. Now they are stupid at the speed of light.
Re:We are evolving.. (Score:5, Insightful)
the more you come to understand and envelope yourself with the real world..the world of dirt,
I'm sorry, is the digital not "real" to you? Am I not real to you? Are the thoughts and ideas from someone in India less real because it comes over a wire?
How exactly is dirt any more real then a hard-drive platter?
You went out and became farmers. That's great for you. Whatever floats your boat. But people have been removed from that environment a hell of a lot longer then you think. City-slickers have had to have the concept of a shovel explained to them since there were cities. When was the last time you got some culture? Saw a play? Went to a concert? Saw through an ad as false promises? Chatted with the immigrant cook in a dive bar? Spotted a con man in the streets? Rural hicks just don't get that "real-world" experience that you get in a city. Your argument works both ways. So don't go confusing a different environment as the one true "real" one.
Now don't get me wrong, it's good to get away from the screen now and then. The same way that it's good to get out of, or into, the city now and then. Diversity, I guess, is the message I'm going for here. I imagine that for most of your "neighbors" (if you had any), browsing wikipedia for a little while or chatting with someone from Iraq would do them a world of good. The sort of real-world eye opening experience you can only get with the batteries full and the screen on.
Re:People have never thought on their own (Score:3, Insightful)
Culture doesn't require religion, and I didn't imply it did. I was parroting his terminology and interestingly enough, you didn't offer the same criticism for his/her/its use of the same terms in a context that clearly was implying religion was wrong.
His whole post is about bucking "cultural norms", and using "shock" value as a measure of sophistication. Go back, read it closely. He/she/it knows exactly what they were saying and clearly implying.
And I find the bucking of cultural norms to be one of those interesting topics of what culture is. With very little variance, the result is how sexually permissive, active and experimental one is is a sign of "sophistication" in this sub culture. Which is exactly why I put it quotes as I understand the definition and why I made reference to two dogs humping in the backyard. Dogs make no distinction on their partners, and that is clearly the sign that they are not sophisticated (bucking the natural).
If you want, let us look at what it means to be sophisticated in context of the definition you gave? Less natural, ignoring base instincts, resisting the natural in favor of reasoned responses. Now compare with the GP post's "shemale" sex with a stranger not based on anything other than selfish pleasure. Hedonism is the opposite of sophistication (your definition).
As for forcing his view on me, yes, he does want to force his version on me. He just did. I don't want to know the sexual perversions of other people. I don't care about it, as it is base and uncouth. I'm not describing my sexual prowess (or lack there of), my conquests (or lack) or whatever, because ... quite frankly, they aren't anyone's business, in exactly the same way as I don't care to know about the intimate details of peoples bowel movements.
Oh, I get it. I just have a much different way of looking at the world than either of you do. And my "wink wink nudge nudge" is not any of your business, "know what I mean" ??