Reading HardOCP Makes U Mor Stoopidier

I am not sure I agree with all of this but it is an interesting read, but I think my IQ might have dropped a few points while ingesting the report outline. Then again, life can get pretty damn boring without a Netflix window open. I call it multi-tasking.

There is a broader conclusion that can be drawn from these experiments that raises questions about the goals of our technological progress. The great power of technology is abstraction, and yet our ability for abstract thought is being undermined by the constant intrusions of digital technology in our mental processes. This is not just a trivial concern. The use of mobile devices among younger and younger children may have serious unintended consequences for the ability of future generations to make use of our rapidly increasing computational capabilities. iPads are being rapidly deployed in middle and high schools, but the results, in my own experience, are not encouraging. Increased game and social media usage seem to be much more prevalent than engagement in the more complex cognitive processes that digital technology are supposed to enable.

I dumped facebook and now I have much more time alone... with my thoughts of course.

Simplification is driving profit but leading society into an idiocracy.

I think the general population is being dumb'd down yes, we rely more and more on devices instead of our memory. Heck people ask me my phone #, i don't know.

Now those who have to maintain these devices and come up with new tech, witty as ever!

But i think most people are just content sponges who give very little thought to anything they are doing..

Humans are incredibly adaptive, but resistant to change. Boredom has been the cause for a lot of discoveries in our history, and with so many devices and things to do with technology, it should be blatantly apparent (not even requiring study) that we're further becoming subsisting procrastinators. It's like a rat with access to its own morphine dose button, really.

I'm like MrGuvernment: I changed my phone number two months ago, and I still have to look at the bloody thing when someone asks me for my number. I also now rely on 1Password to log into basically anything, because I generate passwords for most services. Before 1Password, it was XMarks I was relying on, before that, I could actually remember all of my passwords, but then again there weren't so damned many of them to remember!

The question in my mind -- even if the information was structured to be net positive for the goal of learning rather than entertainment purposes, would people just stop using the Internet and rely on their experiences because they saw it as a chore, or would they embrace the constant flow of information and still be crippled/rely on the data as their long term memory?

I'm not sure if people are being "dumbed down" or if it's just that everyone now (including dumb people) have a voice. We didn't hear much from them when the world got their news from newspapers and there were only a few TV networks. You had to have some professionalism, intelligence, and expertise to even get those jobs.

Now anyone with a smartphone or computer can spew their thoughts on how Obama is a gay communist Muslim. Everyone having a voice is actually a great thing in a lot of ways (this forum for example ). I'm just saying comparing youtube comments to a professional writer (of any era) is comparing apples and oranges.

MrGuvernment said:

But i think most people are just content sponges who give very little thought to anything they are doing..

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Agreed.

Then you take those content sponges, send them off to college, and they become arrogant know-it-alls that are incapable of critical thinking, yet invariably accuse anyone they disagree with of engaging in the same rigid, inflexible, and narrow-minded thinking that they're guilty of themselves. You get more productive results arguing with a tree stump than trying to discuss anything with them as the tree stump can't shout you down and insult your intelligence.

The great problem with this is people don't question anything anymore. They're so used to consuming that they soak up whatever they're told, so long as it fits into their preconceptions, stereotypes, and whatever their clique of friends agree with. You get Side A arguing with Side B, who hates Side C, which really doesn't like Side A, and nobody stops to question whether what they've been educated about, told by friends, heard on the news, or read on Twitbook is factual. It's like those email chain letters that go around. They go around because gullible people don't think, and because it sounds "good" to them, they forward it blindly instead of researching it and finding out it's a 5+ year old hoax that's still kicking around somehow.

The saddest part is... this is what the power brokers in society seem to want - an army of consumer whores that don't question, can't think, do whatever they're told, and have so short an attention span that there's no chance of them being any kind of organized threat to anyone. After all, stupid and gullible consumers are profitable because you can sell them anything, and as for the politicians... well, the stupid and more easily led the voting public is, the better. "Vote for me, the other guy sucks because [insert slogan or topic of the day here]!" It's how the same incumbent dolts stay in power decade after decade, and how incompetent fools can be handed enormous power when they have no clue whatsoever how to do the job they're being elected to do.

That being said... I don't think technology itself is the problem. I think it's being misused as a crutch for poor teaching. You don't need ipads and smartphones in schools. You need teachers that know their subjects and understand how to engage and hold attention of their students, discipline to keep the students focused, and lessons that encourage critical thinking and problem solving. They sent rockets to the moon with SLIDERULES for God's sake! The technology is only as useful as the people using it, and if the people can't think for themselves then both are completely useless, and if that's the outlook for the next generation... well, enjoy it all while you can.

MrGuvernment said:

I think the general population is being dumb'd down yes, we rely more and more on devices instead of our memory. Heck people ask me my phone #, i don't know.

Now those who have to maintain these devices and come up with new tech, witty as ever!

But i think most people are just content sponges who give very little thought to anything they are doing..

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Why is memorizing a random phone number a sign of intelligence though? People tend to remember stuff that is important to them, and a phone # is no longer an important thing to remember for a lot of people. Memorizing passwords instead of phone numbers doesn't indicate any drop in intelligence to me, just a shift in priorities.

I agree most people give very little thought or question to anything they do, but I don't think that's a new development at all. We tend to remember the great thinkers of the past, but for every Galileo there were millions of unthinking people believing the universe revolved around the Earth because their church told them so.

i think you spelled Stoopidier wrong.

it should be stoopider.

tl:dr
Boobies!!!!

I would agree and disagree. While smarter individuals will gain from technology, stupid people are not using technology in the same way. As I do nothing but read and research, others take selfies, shop, and network socially. This is nothing more than what you want to get out of it. I want to become smarter, while others want to be social.

BravO))) said:

I would agree and disagree. While smarter individuals will gain from technology, stupid people are not using technology in the same way. As I do nothing but read and research, others take selfies, shop, and network socially. This is nothing more than what you want to get out of it. I want to become smarter, while others want to be social.

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+1 - case in point; my co-worker performing the same job basically watches youtube fail videos and has his nose in facebook when not actually working... I'm usually reading or studying. And his smartphone doesn't have any apps for remote login, sniffing, wifi surveys, etc. We are definitely not using technology the same way.

I've always felt a bit more intelligent after reading the reviews and articles, well most of the articles. At least the articles featuring total idiots so I can tell myself "Hey, at least I'm not THAT dumb."

What a surprise, another advertisement posing as a news story.

Interestingly, a new app called Moment “automatically tracks how much you use your phone each day,” so you can set limits and restore “balance in your life.” Developer Kevin Holesh explains, “I wrote Moment for myself. I find myself ignoring my family and friends in favor of my iPhone.” He is not a Luddite and claims, “My iPhone has improved my life in a number of ways and I carry it around with me everywhere I go. Sometimes I use it too much, and my eyes and mind start to go numb. I pull out my iPhone to combat boredom. Instead, I could be taking a deep breath and looking at the world around me.” Sounds like the people in Wilson’s study could use Holesh’s app!

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travbrad said:

I'm not sure if people are being "dumbed down" or if it's just that everyone now (including dumb people) have a voice...

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This.

But not reading HardOCP makes you the most-est stoopidier (sp?).

tempertantrum said:

So, I went to grad school for learning technologies and science education, and discovered a lot of interesting things out there. Every generation since at least the Greeks were in charge, people have bemoaned the advent of new technologies. People complained that having written materials like books prevented people from committing learning and wisdom to memory. People complained that no one knew how to use the old writing system, after every new writing utensil was invented. People complained about radio, about TV, about the internet, etc. etc. etc. Here's the reality:

1.) People learn only what they need to for their day to day activities. This has always been true, and always will be.

2.) We are training/teaching more people to a higher level than has ever occurred in the history of the world. There will always be a spectrum though, and our current lock step classroom based system inherently encourages wrote memorization, not comprehension and problem solving, which is largely learned through more realistic interaction with the subject, not textbooks (no matter how pretty or fancy or electronic those textbooks may become). Most people have never had a reason to need to develop problem solving skills, and the truth is, that really hasn't changed.

3.) We've been "reforming" education forever... and largely getting nowhere. Most of what impacts a person's desire to learn and think happens outside of school - they learn from watching their parents. If you want smart people, they need to be forced to think in their day to day life by their parents, internships, etc.

4.) What is IQ? IQ has technically gone up over the years, but does that mean modern people would be more able to survive in past environments? No. Because, again, because just get good at doing the things they do, and thinking in the way they need to in order to get those things done. In this case, there is no pressing need to understand the underlying substance behind the software, hardware, and internet, just to be able to post and connect with "friends"... so blah blah blah IQ.... blah blah blah BS. IQ is not an inherent property - there is no element of any IQ test that you can't train a person to do better at.

My point is, people should stop griping about how much smarter we were in the "good ol' days," because we weren't.

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We may not have been smarter, but there were definitely periods in time (the cultural revolution of the 1960s culminating in the Civil Rights Act comes to mind) where critical thinking and analysis were arguably more commonplace than they are now. I would argue that the intelligence aspect is less important than the ability to think critically. Despite the fact that our education system is constantly claiming to want to improve critical thinking, much of our educational focus is aimed at vocational training, because employers no longer want to train their employees how to do the job when they can get someone else to pay for said training.

Combined with the divisive practices of our political parties, the lack of critical thinking ability is a major concern. How many times have you heard that you are not supposed to talk about politics or religion with people because it will inevitably turn out bad? Why is this the case? Shouldn't we be capable, as civil beings, to have conversations on these things or science or philosophy without someone getting butthurt and ruining it for the rest of us?

tempertantrum said:

My point is, people should stop griping about how much smarter we were in the "good ol' days," because we weren't.

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What you're missing is that in no time in history until now have people had the endless onslaught of distractions that they do today. From the time an infant is born until he or she is out of school, that person is exposed to an insane amount of media content. In the "good ol' days", you had time to do things, and things took time to do. When working you would converse with fellow people, sing, or think about things. When not working, you would talk with family, friends, neighbors, go to church, etc. For leisure outside of that you would play games that took time, such as physical games (throwing a ball, running, whatever), work puzzles, knit, sew... whatever. You engaged in something that required some degree of concentration.

Now... it's impossible for people to concentrate because they're constantly texting, twittering, failbooking, youtubing... doing everything EXCEPT what they're supposed to be doing. It's starting in the formative years, goes into school, and you're left with people that lack an attention span. Case in point: How many people take a properly written essay, the kind I'm notable for, and treat it as "tl,dr"? Why? Because it takes more than 2 seconds so they can't or won't devote any time to it. That is the problem. It's not a lack of intelligence, it's a lack of attention span and lack of ability to focus.

Okay! More stupidity! Let's make a pirate cheer!

DUR HUR HUR!!!