Relying on Technology: Good or Bad?

We live in a world dominated by technology. Even the simplest tasks have been taken over by electronic gadgets and constantly upgraded technology. While these advancements continually allow us to do more than we ever thought possible, at what cost do we employ machines in our everyday lives? As author David R. Larsen puts it, “While our brains are being increasingly enriched with sensory input, our memories, creativity, reasoning, communication, and other cognitive abilities may be atrophying in the wake of this increased dependency.” Has technology actually decreased the use of our minds to solve problems, store data or think “outside the box?”

My husband and I moved to Denver just this summer and were thrilled with the gift of a GSP before we traveled the 650 miles to our new home. Transitioning from a small Iowa town of 5,000 to the thriving city of Denver was no easy feat. Our little gadget proved itself invaluable as we navigated the city streets – finding grocery stores, government offices, retail stores, restaurants and our even piloting alternate routes to avoid traffic. We were beginning to gather our bearings after a few months, but it was so easy to type in a location name or address, that we started to realize we were relying on it rather than actually learning the street names and geography of the city. After a week of turning the device off before leaving our home, we realized that having to use the trial and error method of finding our way from memory used way more brain power, planning and problem-solving. While we still use our GPS to find a new location or an occasional detour, we have found it much more thrilling to rely on our memory and the surrounding landmarks to find our way.

Not only are we relying on GPS devices and the like, but with Blackberries and cell phone data plans, we have internet access at our fingertips. Who was the star of the latest action movie? Let me look it up right here online. What is John’s phone number? Hold on, I’ll email you so you can immediately save it to your contacts and never actually look at the digits. When is your mother’s birthday? Just a minute, let me Facebook my brother…

Some would say the reliance on technology results in the loss of previously accumulated knowledge because we cease to pass it on person to person. Have we become too content to let other people and things do the studying, the searching, and even some of the thinking and evaluating for us?

However, there are always two sides to every argument, and although we do have devices that process computations and store our memories, we also have a large increase in information being delivered to our brains for processing. As more information is processed, more power and memory is needed to support the processing. Maybe now that we are receiving so much more information on a daily basis our brains can’t help but to have to increase the capacity and memory to support the information.

What do you think? Are we at a greater advantage or disadvantage for relying on technology?