Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic Ph.D.

Is Technology Making Us Stupid (and Smarter)?

How the internet makes life more complex — by making complex things simple

Posted May 07, 2013

Imagine one day without your smartphone: you would probably be unable to recall your to-do list, find where you need to go, and keep up with boredom. Now remember how much you over-spent on music, travel, movies, and food 10 years ago, and how limited our knowledge of anything was before Google and Wikipedia. On the one hand, our life is now more efficient, cheaper, simpler and faster thanks to the rise of apps and 24-7 connectivity. On the other hand, that also exposes the intellectual vulnerability of our offline life — without internet access, even a 7-year old is smarter than us (so long as she has access to the web).

Life has become more complex but we hardly ever notice it because technology has made complexity simpler than ever. Psychologists explain this dichotomy in terms of two distinct aspects of human intellect, namely fluid and crystallized intelligence (after Raymond Cattell's 1940s model of IQ). Fluid intelligence refers to the ability to acquire and process information. In computers, this would be the processing speed and RAM capacity — the more you have, the faster and more effortlessly you can multi-task, and the higher the quantity and complexity of stuff you can handle. If you have ever visited Japan, then think of the Tokyo subway (there's just a lot going on, but to daily commuters that is just standard level of data to process). Evidence suggests that — in humans — fluid intelligence has been increasing for decades (what psychologists refer to as the Flynn effect). The average child from 1950 would be handicapped by today's standard IQ tests, and the average child today would be gifted by 1950s standards... but that JUST in terms of their fluid intelligence or ability to process complex information quickly and effectively...

The second aspect of intellect — crystallized IQ — refers not to our ability to gather info but what we actually know; in simple terms, crystallized intelligence means knowledge. Unsurprisingly, with all the knowledge of the world being now outsourced, crowdsourced, and cloudsourced, the individual storage of information is minimal (at least in comparison). Humans today are like most smartphones and tablets - their ability to solve problems depends not on the knowledge they can store but on their capacity to connect to a place where they can retrieve the answer to find a solution. This is what some have labelled the "hyper-link" economy... the only knowledge we need to have is the knowledge of where to find stuff. Notice that the traditional meaning of crystallized IQ referred to knowledge stored "inside our head" (this probably peaked with Leonardo, Voltaire and the encyclopaedists). Luckily, we have not yet seen research evidence that we are becoming more stupid from a crystallised IQ perspective... but one wonders whether we really need to see the research evidence.

What we can conclude with relative certainty is that the technological transformation or revolution we have experienced over the past 15 years must have clear educational implications. Consider the way kids — and older students — are assessed at school and university. They are still pretty much asked to memorise and repeat stuff. But that learning model is in conflict with the way we learn, think, and solve problems today. If the most important form of knowledge today is knowing where to find knowledge (and how to assess it), then schools and universities should teach and assess just that. It is hard to estimate what percentage of exams are internet-based, but the figure is surely a tiny fraction vis-a-vis the proportion of (real-life and formal) problems that are solved by accessing the web.

As for the way we define intelligence, it may be time to consider people's willingness to solve complex problems as a key ingredient of IQ. Consider the following: technology will continue to evolve and the gap between what can be solved with and without it will only increase. That is, we will become more and more dependent of technology and the only intellectual disadvantage will be the inability (or unwillingness) to learn to use it. One could also imagine that this IT-overload may prove too much for some — Daniel Goleman's next book, Focus, will apparently discuss the benefits of being offline... but that is just utopian. In short, people who are able to keep up with technology will outsmart those who don't (even more than they do now). Therefore, educators, parents and employers should try to foster an appetite for complexity, a curious and hungry mind, especially when it comes to paying attention to technological advances.

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13 Comments

I call it information

Submitted by Anonymous on July 23, 2013 - 4:00pm

I call it information overload for one thing. Think back before the electronic age when access to information was limited. Yes. We had libraries. But it was a chore to learn because it had to be compiled manually and at a pace. This made even a little information more valuable because it was truly earned.

"Gosh. To think what I went through to learn what I did! But it was well worth it. I will always be grateful for what I have accomplished."

But fast forward to modern times. Information overload. Too much access to too much information. And much of that information is tossed around loosely. And much of it is being accessed improperly. For instance. People are no longer compiling information the way they once did. Rather, they are simply trying to find direct answers to questions based on flawed, incomplete, or biased data. Sure. Those things have always existed. But today, they have dominated the information world.

So we have been breeding a generation of self proclaimed know it alls who think they are smart because they have filled their heads with a ton of information their friends and relatives don't have. But it's just filler material. It has accomplished nothing at all because it came in vain. And most of the Internet information is media gossip and meaningless garbage. And it is marketed as the most important info in the world. And that alone is a very big reason why the Internet has had a negative impace on our culture. Long ago, we only saw the news for 30 minutes three times day on television. And many didn't bother watching it. Now it is thrown in everyone's face like the Super Bowl 24/7/365. And its making people very shallow and narrowminded. Not to mention paranoid.

Remember when writers had to type with old fashioned typewriters? Talk about a slow process. But something very significant came with it. But now they type sloppy as hell and a fast pace. And then use spelling correction to fix it all. This has created such a different perspective altogether that it has virtually killed the quality of writing material. Like everything else these days, we end up with too many writers all writing in the same style. There was a time when the only thing in overabundance was a phone book with 5000 lawyers in the same town. Not hard to figure out we don't need more than 100 tops. But today, it's that way with everything. Everyone is for sale. Everyone is an expert. You can't sell anything honestly anymore because everyone is already "informed" about everything. So now we have unlimited business models that revolve around eliminating ethics in favor of "dog eat dog". A bunch of liars trying to sell their "unique" products that are far from unique in reality. But the only thing that has not changed in this world in comparison to 50 years ago is that all the original, unique products in this world are STILL in small numbers. You can bet when something new comes out, a year later 10000 companies will copy it and call it unique.

This is a discussion that could go on and on. But what I have spoken thus far involves the process of how and why people have become really stupid. Smart is a subjective term because anyone can be for or against a single idea and be considered smart by someone else. But stupid has a clear cut meaning. And it fits today's youth like a glove.

In the information age, you need your facts to be straight

Submitted by Anonymous on August 15, 2013 - 6:45pm

As both a product of today's "stupid youth" (I'm 23) and someone who spent the first 18 years of life completely disconnected from the internet I feel I have a fair perspective of both viewpoints. To attack the internet/information age as being the destruction of intellect is inaccurate and flawed, but not without some merit behind it. Your post has be believe that you condemn it across the board as a universally bad thing - the same thing was said of paper because the Greeks were afraid that its widespread usage would destroy the art of oration and lead to the stagnation of learning and knowledge. Clearly, this wasn't the case.

I also have to fervently dispute the claim that the internet has had a universally negative affect on modern culture. Yes, it has led to a substantial amount of hollow information devoid of any purpose, hence why I tend to not watch a lot of TV these days - Its mind numbing garbage. Even the news is hardly worth watching as its about a celebrity or some other trial publicized to sell information rather than inform the public. That said, information also tends to spread like wildfire these days, and while it isn't by any means 100% accurate, when someone such as Bob Filner, who I believe is part of the baby boomer generation, runs a corrupt office, he is immediately and instantly called out for it. Suddenly, EVERYONE knows about the corruption. Back in the age of typewriters and operator maintenanced phones I imagine that information would take a long time to spread and by the time it was dispersed among the public too few people would still be feeling enough indignation to care anymore. In this sense, the sheer speed at which information travels encourages people to be on their best behavior because if you do wrong, EVERYONE will know as opposed to before when, as long as you didn't wrong the wrong people - it wasn't a big deal.

As for making the modern generation paranoid, I'm not even going to dignify that with a response since people have been prophesying the end of the world since the fall of Rome. Shallow and narrowminded? Hang on one second while I take a trip to facebook and/or twitter...No wait actually I take that back. You have a point on the shallow part. As for the narrowminded part I have to again disagree. All I need to say is that the older generation condemned homosexuals and pot smokers to burn in hell. Come to find out, pot actually allows small children with significant heath defects to live happy normal lives. Just ask Sanjay Gupta. If being narrowminded means having a mind set which allows me to believe that challenging a social taboo may allow people to live a healthy life and some individuals to be allowed to spend their lives with the one they love then by all means, PLEASE call me narrowminded until you're blue in the face. I suppose that also defeats you're whole "Technology has accomplished nothing" belief too.

Don't get me wrong, I do not believe the internet to be this 100% beautiful and glorious thing. Sometimes bad research gets published. It happens. Thankfully because of the incredible speed at which information is spread, legitimate experts on a given topic will be able to look at, critique and peer review. As a result, bad research is more often than not quickly discredited. But a lot of human flaws you describe aren't by any means new. In case you have forgotten, unethical business practices are not even a remotely new concept. In the early 1900's con men sold snake oil, 30 years later Rockefeller forces an oil monopoly and during this whole time the tobacco industry convinces an uninformed public that smoking somehow isn't bad for your own personal health. The only difference I see now is that instead of being sold snake oil, I'm having to pointlessly update my operating system once a year because a couple of dweebs at microsoft go "oooooooh, shiny". Hence why I've started teaching myself to use linux.

"But what I have spoken thus far involves the process of how and why people have become really stupid."

Didn't you just call people out for claiming to be experts when they aren't? So either you forgot what it was you just said, or you're a hypocrite.

The bottom line is this, people haven't become dumber they have been challenged in such a way that they have to completely reshape the way they think. We no longer are forced to memorize things - all the information is at our fingertips. Instead, we are challenged to seriously consider the information and question EVERYTHING which ultimately leads to understanding. If there is anything that I have learned in my meandering through life its that knowing something is completely useless if you don't understand what it is you know. In some ways an information overload is a good thing because we are forced to assume everything we are told is false and its that assumption which leads us down the path to find truth. Before the internet, such information was not at your fingertips was just as misconstrued as it is now. Only now, people can instantaneously connect to information and will IMMEDIATELY call you out on inaccuracies and falsehoods since when you connect to the internet you are linking yourself to a community which does include *some* individuals who are actually experts. The ones who aren't are typically picked apart point by point and we call these people "trolls".

P.S. - To challenge myself I wrote this entire thing without using google or any sort of informational text on the web, except to check the age of Bob Filner - Who I was pretty sure was a corrupt old politician to begin with.

Hi 2nd Anon, I'm another 23

Submitted by 3rd Anon on September 13, 2015 - 4:34pm

Hi 2nd Anon, I'm another 23 year old who would like to reply to your post. The internet is a pretty cool and useful tool, but I think a lot of people let it do their thinking for them. We can as quickly and efficiently villainize a corrupt politician as we can an innocent one, and in ways which before was never possible. It's this ineptitude and dishonesty that leads to misunderstanding, chaos, and certainly paranoia.

I don't know how smart people were fifty years ago, but they didn't have to deal with sheer level of social control that the media and our own peers thrust on us now.

I think the biggest problem with the internet it's lack of direction, and if you don't have one, you can quickly forget yourself. I guess that's the same anywhere though, so maybe if you look out for yourself it's not that big a deal.

Technology

Submitted by Jorge on July 25, 2013 - 4:47pm

My sense is that what matters has not changed. I believe that learning is about action and reflection. Ultimately, all of us must act on what we know(no matter how or where it was obtained)while attempting to learn from the results of your actions. I think the learning part requires reflection. And reflection happens off-line not on-line.

I agree with both the fluid

Submitted by Lane on September 16, 2013 - 9:13pm

I agree with both the fluid and crystallized points of view. Both touch on extremely important matters. One thing is for sure when we learn to use both more efficiently we will excel to new hieghts.

Intelligence & the Internet.

Submitted by Anonymous on February 22, 2014 - 7:06am

I have several times searched 'Are people getting thicker?' My reasons for doing this are because, it seems to me that, indeed, they are. That is how I came to this article, - but I added this time, 'the internet'. I have an I.Q. of about 151, but knowing that has never made me feel particularly confident about it. What DID make me confident with regard to my I.Q., was the internet. It opened my eyes more than anything before to how very stupid some people really are. I can't offhand, think of any particular examples, (except for the facebook person who genuinely thought that factory farmed animals were not the same as other animals.) Actually I've come across so very many examples of people being dopey, that I barely take it in any more.
Specific irritations are,:= that you never can be sure of the veracity of things on the web. Once something has been put there, it can quickly be repeated and spread, by any number of others, - whether or not there is truth to it. Book publishers and newspapers tend to be rather more discriminating in the accuracy of what they print. My other personal irritation is that many internet users don't seem to be able to use grammar or spell properly. I honestly wouldn't mind, but all too often, sentences become so incomprehensible that it takes some time to interpret them and even then, you're left wondering.
I think spelling, across the global population has become pretty terrible, possibly as a result of mobile phones and spell-checkers.
Anybody can put anything on the web. A brick layer could write about brain surgery, and only brain surgeons would be any the wiser. Personally, I wouldn't put anything on the internet that I wasn't sure of, except with the warning that I was uncertain of my facts. I wouldn't, - but there are others that would.
Yes, I believe that the internet is making us dimmer, probably not less intelligent, but, less accurate.

Nice

Submitted by Anonymous on September 11, 2014 - 11:24am

Nice

Helped me a lot

Submitted by Anonymous on September 11, 2014 - 11:24am

Helped me a lot

very detailed and precise.

Submitted by Anonymous on October 7, 2014 - 9:39pm

very detailed and precise. exactly what I needed

Technology Is Incapable...

Submitted by Ronin on July 15, 2015 - 2:33pm

Technology isn't making us stupid. It doesn't possess the ability to as it is inanimate and is in no way The God and Creator of Heaven and Earth.

I do believe the people behind it are intentionally making it more complicated and less obvious to make certain people(whom they deem "undesirable") FEEL STUPID.

However, this does not phase me because I'm ALWAYS QUITE CAPABLE of figuring it out. I serve a brilliant God who place his brilliance in me an in all who were created in His image(Every Human Being) and He always leads me to research for or find the right answer to figure the "difficult" things out.

Everyone is smart! Everyone is capable of figuring it out. It depends somewhat on how much patience and determination a person has. However, technology shouldn't be getting more complicated, it should be getting easier for EVERYONE to use.

I believe the "higher ups" are attempting to insult our intelligence by "hiding things in plain sight". Nobody has time for that game. Pretty soon no one in their right frame of mind will continue investing in technology, so they might want to play it smart and just keep it simple before they lose all their "consumers".

Both of those

Submitted by Candyce on August 17, 2016 - 5:31pm

The technology can either make us smart or make us stupid. It depends of how we use it..
https://flix-account.com

Technology

Submitted by Amina on July 3, 2017 - 1:08pm

Is Technology making us smarter or stupid?
I want to say, it depends on how to use these technologies. If you just sitting on the couch and reading stupid blogs, watching Instagram or posting something on Facebook, my answer will be "Yes" because you don't learn anything new, you just spend your time and don't want to develop yourself as a person, you just want to to have fun time and don't care about your self-development. But if you use your technology for searching facts, information, reading news, books...or looking for information for self-development it will make you smarter than other people. Because you will always have different topics for speaking with people. Also, you'll know a sort of around the world. We have to understand "Technology" it's a way to be smart, to have fun, to have an opportunity read the news and information, but not to be stupid, if you want to live well you will know how to spend and use your time with "Technologies"

Is Technology Making

Submitted by Diane C. Brown on August 19, 2017 - 2:15pm

Hey, I'm Diane C. Brown.I'm so excited to hear you enjoyed this! Must add it to my post. you just want to to have fun time and don't care about your self-development. But if you use your technology for searching facts, information, reading news, books...or looking for information for self-development it will make you smarter than other people. Everyone is smart! Everyone is capable of figuring it out. It depends somewhat on how much patience and determination a person has. However, technology shouldn't be getting more complicated, it should be getting easier for EVERYONE to use.

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