I've been thinking about this for a long time. Back in the 1990's, some friends of mine ran a humor site called Shtick! - of the co-editors, and original Bigfellas singer Tim Gadzinski, once described the majority of my pieces being about how each advance in technology somehow made our lives slightly worse. I don't disagree.

For this post a couple of days ago, I was doing due diligence and googled "is tech making us stipid". Despite the typo, I got what I needed. That's a tiny microcosm of what I'll talk about. Modern tools like allowing for misspellings have increased productivity and shaved time; yet, it's allowed me to be dumber with no repercussions. Yeah, it's a good thing. But our personal performance, attention to detail and intelligence starts getting sloppy.


Lack Of Memory

Now that all of your contacts are in your phone, how many phone numbers do you actually know? Yours, perhaps your spouse's, maybe your parents and not very much more. At the same time, if you're over 40 then I'm going to wager that you can still tell me the phone numbers of your best friend growing up.

Can you give somebody directions even 20% as effectively as their phone would? Do you know the name of the cross-streets on the way? You would have 50 years ago. Not a big loss overall in skills, I get it.

Here's something scary for those of us who read more online and fewer books: Reading without hyperlinks allows you to retain more from the reading (read article here).


Adverse Health Effects

We all know in our hearts and heads know that increasing online time while decreasing activity is a bad thing. Yet it happens for us and our children, with spikes in blood pressure and enhanced likelihood of Type 2 diabetes.

Similarly, we probably already all know that "smartphones are also linked to reduced social interaction, inadequate sleep, poor real-world navigation, and depression" even without reading this article.

There are all kinds of credible, bad reports about how cellphones are hurting our brains in a lot of ways:

- The actual electromagnetic signals from phones can affect brain waves.

- Children meet the definition of "addiction" when it comes to technology, adults too.

- Both anecdotal experience and research tells as that smartphone use is dovetailing with teenage depression.

- Technology makes us bored, lonely and angry.

Or how about this: IQ scores have literally dropped since 2000. Of course, IQ tests aren't a perfect marker for intelligence. But that coincidence of our best (though flawed) intelligence indicator has suddenly gone down for the first time with the advent of the internet and cellphones is news that stops me in my tracks.


Can Our Brains Handle This Much Change

Maybe this is off-topic but it's something I wonder about. There's a trend in computing hardware called "Moore's Law" that says computer chip capacity doubles every two years. Similarly, in general, mankind's technological advancements happen exponentially faster over time.

At the same time, medicine has continually extended life expectancy over time. Right now U.S. life expectancy is 79.25 where 50 years ago it was just 70. And that number will be 83 years old in another 25 years. There's a great interactive chart found here.

What amount of change do we see over a lifetime. My grandmother went from cars and radios being a novelty up to better cars, television and early internet. I may go from early cable tv and primitive microwave ovens to potentially living at the same time as legitimate cyborgs, and being able to change the surface of your coffee table from wood to stainless steel with the press of a button.

If I live to be 90 or 100, how the hell will my brain be able to deal with how different everything is? Moreover, a baby born today if he or she lives to be 110 will have god knows what changes in their lifetime. What are the limits of change, acceptance and adaptability for the human brain? I guess we'll find out.


The Spooky Future

Let's face it: humans will really be part cyborg in the future. It sounds scary now in the abstract but as things keep happening incrementally, every advancement seems fine. Amputees already have synthetic replacement arms controlled by that persons brain, it's amazing. Would you deny those people that opportunity because we're scared of the future? Of course not, but that's how the eventual slide towards an augmented humanity happens.

In the future, you'll likely be able to pay for and download a language to your brain. Does that mean you're "smarter"? I think it renders even the question of being smarter vs. dumber as pointless.

Does it matter that 25 year olds today are less likely to be able to balance a checkbook than a 25 year old in the 1980s? Does being good at arithmetic make you "smart"? Not for me to say.


What Have We Gained?

Of course, progress is obvious. There are so many things that even just recent technological advancements have given us: More self-expression, access to information, equaled the gap and lack of opportunities for people in third world countries. Business efficiency has taken up with advancement in computing, and also things like remote work widening the employment pool. Communication is almost infinitely easier now - when it comes to meeting your wife after you've parked the car or staying in touch with people thousands of miles away.

We don't need to be Luddites, we just need to be careful.

The explosion in access to Information is incredible - but is that information correct? That's a whole other rabbit hole and track.

Personally, I feel more stupid than I used to be. But that's not a fair standard. I'm older and although I'm not old, I'm definitely in decline. Our bodies and brains peak in our 20's. After that your cells are dying faster than you're producing them, through your body and your brain (aka "decay"). Whether we are at our sharpest mentally in our 20s vs. 30s vs. 40s is up for debate in the scientific community.

None of us can really measure if technology makes us stupid by comparing ourselves to our younger selves. All we can track is how 18 year olds fare now in the exact same measurements vs. 18 year olds of previous time. Not that there's too much we can do about anything. Technology is going to continue to march forward; since every good idea is worth doing, nobody's ever going to stop small incremental progress because they're scared about the longterm unseen effects.


Data vs. Wisdom

I used to work with a terrific programmer and developer John Yetter. One time I remember being at a St. Louis Cardinals home game with him and our conversation getting very philosophical; he because he's a deep and thoughtful individual, me because I'd had several beers.

What I really recall is him introducing me to a quote "Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom." I though he said it was C.S. Lewis but it turns out that was from Clifford Stoll (did I say I had some beers?).


Where Does That Leave Us

Wisdom or knowledge are hard to define. Who's to say what "smart" is so how can we necessarily say that humans are dumber.

Our children's skill sets will be different. Not necessarily better or worse. There has already been an increase in young people's intelligence about spatial relationships, no doubt due to video games.

But when it comes to a lot of things that used to signify being "smart" for humans, things are changing. Things like arithmetic, spelling, being well-read - those traits are most definitely in heavy decline.

As for what I think is the greatest sign of intelligence: the ability to have new ideas, and not just regurgitating facts or being a great speller, hopefully will continue to thrive. Good luck to all of us in the future.