Is technology dumbing people down.

[Augustus]

Is technology dumbing people down?

For example take autofill -Type a few letters and it will pop the word or similar up.
Take spell checker -Spell it wrong and the correct way will pop up.

I admit I often use those without giving it a thought because its so simple and easy.
Not much thinking involved and when not using my cell/tablet or laptop and actually writing, I sometimes have to think about and look some words to make sure I have spelled them right.

All in all I would say my spelling has slightly declined. Now it could be age but IMO its more of it will do it for me.

That's just one simple example.

Maybe its just me. Anyone else?

People have been saying the same thing for the past 2500 years.

From Plato’s Phaedra, on the invention of writing:

Here, O king, is a branch of learning that will make the people of Egypt wiser and improve their memories. My discovery provides a recipe for memory and wisdom. But the king answered and said ‘O man full of arts, the god-man Toth, to one it is given to create the things of art, and to another to judge what measure of harm and of profit they have for those that shall employ them.

And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.

What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to their fellows.

 

[ratiocinator]

You aren't solving it, your calculator is.
You are just relaying the calculators answer.

Sorry but this is nonsense. Mathematics isn't about doing simple arithmetic. If you're studying anything above primary school level, all the work is theoretical and symbol manipulation. Calculations are the tedious and boring bit you do when you've finished the real work.

I even use more advanced 'calculators' to do the boring calculus stuff if I want to concentrate on doing (say) General Relativity.

Mathematics is all about understanding, not the ability to do simple mental arithmetic. In fact, as I indicated before, in my experience those people who are good at real mathematics are generally not good at mental arithmetic. I was using a (very expensive, at the time) scientific calculator at A-level (17 to 18 year-old) because that's what the 6th-form college recommended. Was this a new thing that's destroying education in recent times? No. I'm talking about the late 1970s.

 

[anotherneil]

Technology has been causing some sort of atrophic effect on humans and our ancestral primates ever since they came up with the very first thing that qualifies as technology (using a stick as a spear, using a rock as a hammer to smash or crush things, etc.). With technology, we trade off one ability for another ability that has a net gain. We'd probably still be covered with fur or a thick layer of hair all over our body, we'd probably have bigger muscles and thicker bones, we'd probably be able to run faster, our brains would probably be smaller, and our survival rates would probably be much lower.

When the (electronic) calculator was invented, we probably lost some handwritten math calculation skills; does it matter? I think what matters more is the productive results of having a calculator that can give us the answer faster and reduces mistakes than a quasi-obsolete skill, but it is important to have exposure and understanding of what goes into calculations. We should still learn those handwritten math calculation techniques, but we shouldn't shun the use of the calculator for the sake of a pointless religious-like principle.