My Life With Asperger's

First using the term "young people" sets up an arbitrary division between old and young, between us and they. Not the best approach to find willing listeners. Also I think the author's message is not about differences between generations.

Technology is neutral so it has the capacity to make us smarter and/or dumber, that depends on the user.

The problem, as I see it, is that we have intellectually sophisticated societies that are immature in many other ways (emotionally, intuitively, psychologically). Basically we reward big brains but not wisdom.

Throwing technology into the mix we now have the capacity to manipulate even more brainy facts at the expense of the rest of us.

I think the author uses the term "young people" because those of younger generations have only experienced the world through technology as opposed to the older, who had the opportunity to live life without. This difference in experiences creates a pretty large rift without designating exact age-ranges.

And the thing is, we don't even reward big brains anymore. We simply reward/admire those who can get the best answers fastest. If you can do that through memory, that's dandy. But spending all the time it would take to memorize things would slow down the search in the short-run. In this fast-paced modern world, it's more beneficial to use machines to conjure up facts than to learn.

Reading this article recalled a friend of mine- he doesn't read anything in paragraph form online because he has the attention span of a fly, and for years had to use a GPS to navigate within 5 miles of his house. When i pointed out to him once that he should probably try to learn to navigate his significant routes without relying on a machine, his response was a shrug coupled with "i don't care". (if his GPS broke, he could always call his Mom to pick him up or direct him)

When I refer to "young people" I refer to those who grew up surrounded by electronic information technology and the Internet; specifically, those who are teens today.

I did not mean to suggest older people are inherently different; we simply grew up prior to the advent of those devices which now do some of our thinking for us.

I think we all started out the same as people, but technology has shaped the current generation rather differently.

This has been going on for awhile - and it's not just limited to the internet. Look at the skill of making change. How many kids who work in the line at McDonald's today could add up the bill on their own, calculate tax, and give the right change without the picture-coded computerized register?

and play some Geo Challenge - that may help you to feel thrown away into the good old classroom studying all that foreign countries and cities no one of us heard ever before ;)

I wonder if the hunters thought this of farmers, and if the farmers viewed industrialists this way. It would seem that any new technology takes us away from one set of skills, and into another. I always admired my grandparents for being able to survive without a grocery store, but yet I can't. Nowadays, I can read a map to find where I'm going, but my children need GPS. It bothers me to know this, but it probably bothered my grandfather to know his children (and grandchildren) would starve if a hurricane took out the IGA.

Dave, what you refer to is really reliance on the structures of society. Whether you grew your food or bought it, you still developed certain cognitive skills 40 years ago. Those skills - doing basic math in your head; figuring a route on a map; etc . . . they lay the foundation of much of our greater mental prowess. That foundation does not get built in the same way when we rely on calculators for math and the internet for memory.

In that sense, this is something new and worrisome

I haven't met a single person wich in the middle of an any topic conversation takes out the blackberry saying: "Hey! hold on let me seek it and I'll talk to you in a minute"

Information is more versatile now than ever. So people in the middle age where the books were restricted for only a few were smarter?

Besides having lot of memory banks doesnt make you smarter. But the reasoning using that information, who cares if its in your memory or in an old book or in the internet?

I don't think technology is making us dumber at all. In fact, I think it has the opposite effect. The Flynn Effect discusses this phenomenon. Here is a link: http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml

Also, there is a book by Steven Johnson that covers exactly how technology is improving our intelligence and abilities to understand our increasingly complicated world. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Bad-Good-Steven-Johnson/dp/1594481946/r...

While I agree that technology is causing our youth to learn different skills then were necessary just a short time ago, they are no longer necessary.

I am 29 years old, and on the cusp of technology. I learned how to read a map and make change, but some of my peers did not.

The reliance of ANYTHING, be it technology, money, or drugs, has a significant negative impact on you. The more you rely on technology to give you the answers, the fewer answers you have left once the technology is taken away, in the same way that you rely on money for food, water, and shelter, and if the money is taken away, you'll have a hell of a time finding those basic necessities. Why would it be so hard to find something so basic? It's the level of reliance.

The key is to UTILIZE technology, not rely on it.

-17 year old, and proud 'Young Person'

I agree with this thoughtful and well spoken piece because it matches some of my own observations. Once when I tried to subscribe to the New York Times at my suburban home on Long Island, I was informed that my street did not exist because it was not on their computer. He then went on to ask me if my street could be "Associated" with a street of a similar name 25 miles away in the Bronx. Associated? As a commuter every morning, I sometimes wonder of the purpose of modern humans is to poke, stare at or talk into slender rectangular glass and metal objects.

On the other hand, the information needs of people are changing in microscopic ways every day. One day I was looking at the entrance requirements for admission into one of the state colleges in Arizona in 1890. Just to get into college they had to solve quadratic equations and read the classics in the original Latin and Greek. That's why it always seems to us old timers that civilization is about to come crashing to an end.

I'm 22, female, and a complete web geek. I'm just old enough that I studied with books, paper and pencils in hand, but I'm also just young enough that I put that behind me as soon as I could. My life revolves around, and is enhanced by, technology. I sit in a house of two people with five computers and two smart phones between us. I am, you could say, the technophile; and, no, I am not "dumb."

I just recently finished a degree in multimedia and media studies, and I grew tired of hearing so many academics talk about the "dumbing down" of society due to technology. (This was typically said while they struggled with their poorly-made PowerPoint.) I won't speak much in the way of how technology has affected our attention spans, productivity, relationships, etc., but I can certainly say that younger age groups are not dumb. We just happen to know how to use the technology that so many others irrationally fear. We know how to use the technology that, out of fear and confusion, some choose to see as inferior. That sort of reaction to media technology has happened many times throughout history.

Sure, my mother can sit for days on end, studying something, and she recalls it very well by the time she's finished. I'm sure, if I wanted to, I could do the same thing; I did in the past, during dial-up days. However, I don't want to, and I don't understand why I personally would. It seems a precious waste of life to me. Why spend days on end memorizing something, when you can spend 30 seconds searching for the answer? Search for it a few times, and before you know it, you have it committed to memory, anyhow--but in an easier, faster way. I can't speak for everyone, but I know my brain intuitively retains that which I come back to time and again. The least bit of critical thinking will help you find the most logical answer to almost whatever question you might have. What my mother might do in three days, I do in minutes.

This isn't to say that my mother's way of learning or interacting with the world is inferior, but then, I'm not wrong, either. We work differently, and we both have our own set of strengths and weaknesses.

Am I to be considered "stupid" because I don't try to commit everything to memory? If so, there are many people who should be labeled as such! For instance, how many reading this use cruise control, but know nothing of the inner workings of their car? You trust that technology, the makers of it, and your use of what you know about it. In so many cases, no harm will come from your relying on it or any other feature.

Are you to be considered stupid, simply because you don't know all the minuscule workings of your vehicle? I hope not. Regarding the car example, if it came down to it, I could easily learn something on my own, thanks to the technology that supposedly makes me dumb, while those unsure of it would end up buying a book, going to a mechanic or paying for an expensive course. Hey, if you've got the money to blow and want to do all that, more power to you, but while you're at it, I'll be taking the car apart and putting it back together. And, you know, it will take my brain to do that. I'll have to read, process what I read and carry out actions. My brain's wiring will be hard at work...just in a different way. Is that really so bad? Does that really make me dumber than you?

I'm tired of getting labeled as "dumb," simply because I don't navigate the world in the way that some others see fit. I guarantee you that I could find information better than most people over a certain age, that I could quickly repair (or find someone who could repair) what many would consider "irreparably broken," that I could more easily discern hoaxes and digitally-altered photographs in the news (traditional or otherwise), and so on and on and on.

Does technology make us dumber? Consider asking the people at TED.

Alvin Toffler said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

I believe how we valued information 20 years ago is different from how we value information now. 20 years ago I guess it was more about quantity--how smart you were seemed to be measured more by how much you knew the moment you were asked a question.

Now it's about quality--there's just so much information readily available out there that the prized skill has become more about being able to take all that information, digest it, weigh it, and form your own opinion about things vs. parroting back what you saw someone blog over the internet.

We're still thinking--we're just thinking differently, that's all.

Having said that, there is something that needs to continue to exist across generations and across technological advances: the ability to recognize when one doesn't know enough about something, and the self-discipline to take the time and learn about it.

You mentioned the advantage you have if your phone fails that you can take out your map and eventually drive your car to your destination. Although your claim is valid, doesn't at the same time make you slave of technology from the point that you depend on your car to reach your destination? For you, failing your car's engine will have the same results that some technology dependent people will have by loosing the connection with the satellite.

I believe that there will be always wise people that will be aware of the reality, of the traps for their spirit and of their intellectual difference. At the same time there will always be the mass, the people that 300 years ago would spend their time in an old pub drinking beers and giving birth to children one after the other. These same people are the ones today spending all the day on reading short articles on Internet. On the other hand, I am one now that is spending time on Internet reading short posts of yours... Doesn't this make you think that in the end our world is not just black and white?

Artefacts dependance is as old as human race. From the point that the first homosapience made his first tool to assist him on hunting, he instantly got depended on it to get food. Technological artefacts are an indication of healthy human race growth.

Calm down and don't worry too much... There is nothing to worry about human race, about something that is inherently flawed. As Nietzsche said "Human race is nothing more than a bridge to the overman". There is no overman yet out there to get spoiled by the technological advances.

This is wonderful! Don't loose all hope for a young generation ;) I'm twenty two and writing a paper with a similar topic for Philosophy class. Thanks for your article, it's a inspiration. So to are many of the comments regarding this article. Thanks!!

Love,
Sarah