In our class we've learned about a lot of different technologies and how they help individuals in both their personal and business lives. But are all these advances in technology good for us?
We can all pretty much agree that Socrates (yes we are talking about a Greek philosopher in a technology class) was a brilliant man. We can also agree that, for centuries, we've defined an "educated" person as someone who can "read and write". Its very interesting then to note that Socrates "bemoaned the development of writing" and thus also books and reading. His reasoning stemmed out of a fear that as people would come to rely on written word and books, that they would "cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful." He went on to say that without proper instruction on how to train the mind, people would not truly be knowledgeable, and instead would be truly ignorant.
As we mentioned in class..."if you don't know the answer to something, you can just Google it". Don't know the name of an actor or movie, just IMDB it. Don't worry about getting directions to your destination, just plug it into your GPS.
For my whole life people had to look at maps in order to find their way to a destination. I have memories of being amazed by my fathers ability to recall street names and directions to my friends house that he was only at once and over a year ago. He took pride in remembering directions. My father-in-law, took pride in remember account numbers, and yes, the 16 digit ones. All too often, navigation today is handed off to technology. Most people have no idea how to read a map, estimate distance, and relate it to their physical surroundings. And why should they, machines and satellites do it much better. And come on....remembering a 16 digit account number...impossible!
When I was in 4th grade, you had to actually memorize the 50 states and capitals and all former US Presidents. We would race against our friends and parents to see who could recite them faster. Does it matter? Well, today, the iPhone will tell me more about any state or president than I could possibly ever remember. But have we stopped exercising our minds and conditioning it to be smarter. I'll be honest, I don't remember the last time I bothered remembering a phone number. I just hit the voice command on my phone and speak "Call Home".
Most of the time, technology makes us feel smarter. When a friend at a party shouts out the answer to a question that no one else could remember (because he looked it up on his phone) your friend feels superficially smarter....but is he really dumber because he isn't strengthening the brain wiring that solves problems and instead relying on a machine.
My grandfather just passed away this year at the ripe old age of 104! Right up until the end, his brain was sharp. He remembered people and names. Could tell stories from things that happened years ago, and loved doing crossword puzzles. He would do them all day and was fast. After filling in the correct response to one of the questions, he would glance up at whoever was sitting next to him and ask "Did you know that?" This is a man who never had an iPhone, never owned a computer, and certainly never searched for anything online.
If Socrates was scared that writing and books would make us ignorant, what would he think of all the technology benefits we have today? I bet you could "Google it" to find out.
What do you think?
