Digital Dementia

[Lost User]

There was a report a few weeks ago saying that children need to be bored in ble to develop imagination and to be creative.

“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks

[lewax00]

I agree it could, but that doesn't seem to connect to the effect they claim. I admit, I'm a little touchy about the subject. It just seems to be a favorite media scapegoat, almost always with no actual evidence, and it irritates me. The way it's written it seems to be more of like they thought: "Hmm...well we like smart phones...so let's blame video games too!"

[lewax00]

ChrisElston wrote:

children need to be bored

But isn't that what school is for? ;P (Also, if you can find a kid that is not bored at some point everyday, then you deserve a prize.)

[enhzflep]

Any chance you've lost a "order to be a", from somewhere right before ble?

Make it work. Then do it better - Andrei Straut

[Big Daddy Farang]

I lost one of those also. Darndest thing.

BDF The internet makes dumb people dumber and clever people cleverer. -- PaulowniaK

[Peter Adam]

Yes, I have noticed so become a subscriber at Lumosity[^]. They have some fast arithmetic games among the usual memory, face recognition, multitasking and Moorhuhn games.

[Mark_Wallace]

What utter bollocks. Oh. It's the daily mail. That explains a lot. On a real note, there are genuine worries in China that younger people are not learning to write by hand, since computers, etc, allow them to use Pinyin to enter Chinese characters. It takes a long, long time and a lot of practice to write in Chinese (they have somewhat more than 26 characters, and they're all a lot more complicated to write), and, understandably, Chinese kids aren't putting in the required time and effort.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

[R Erasmus]

If I don't use things on a regular basis, I forget how it works. Its usually very easy to remember how it works again and I just need a reminder, e.g. reading it again. That's my opinion anyways. I do feel that what out brains think are important to remember has shifted. Your brain probably thinks that it can solve simple arithmetic with a calculator so it doesn't require you to remember it anymore. It now focuses more on how to use a calculator. (just a simple example)

"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." << please vote!! >>

[Herbie Mountjoy]

I think, generally speaking, that programmers and engineers are better at working things out than they are at memorising facts. For instance, I always did well at maths and other subjects that involved problem solving. I was absolutely hopeless at history, geography and languages because they relied on memory. Of course, the really intelligent folk, unlike myself, can do both.

I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.

[Fran Porretto]

Actually, I've noticed the opposite: As I've gained understanding of the accumulation of technology around us, I've gotten sharper. Indeed, it's been a survival necessity.

One of the underappreciated aspects of the tech explosion is that it's tended to cross-cut Mankind's principal advantage over the lower orders: adaptability. Learning is about adaptation. We incorporate knowledge and behavioral consequences that flow from it to cope with the challenges and hazards around us. However, a great part of the tech proliferating around John Q. Public has subtly insulted that human asset. In effect, it's said to us, "You don't need to be that alert and adaptable. We the swaddling technological environment will learn your oddities and needs, and adapt to them!"

This is not good -- and not because all the tech might disappear some day and leave us dependent on ourselves once again. If we succumb to the "guidance of the machines," (Cf. John Sladek, "This Happy Breed") we will eventually surrender the greater part of our freedom to choose.

To function independently, and at a high level, in the tech-suffused 21st Century, it's become necessary to:

• Take note of the arrival of a new item of tech around us;
• Learn its range of available states and what causes it to enter each of them;
• Acquire new states of our own that are prior and superior to those of the emergent tech.

If we wish to continue to be the masters of our own affairs, this is mandated by the Law of Requisite Variety. And I so wish.

(Yes, I'm quite serious. Consider the hash "smart traffic lights" have made of previously predictable and easily negotiated urban driving patterns, because so many people have failed to acquire new adaptations by which to place the driver in command of them. That's just one example.)

(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)

[Fabio Franco]

I have been wondering about that myself for several years now. I just can't be sure if the liquor or the digital dependence are to blame.

To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia

[Simon Lee Shugar]

"I think we're becoming a generation of avid categorisers, we no longer retain the information we consume, but we know where to find it." This is something a friend and I talked about not so long ago it and we came up with the statement above.

Simon Lee Shugar (Software Developer) www.simonshugar.co.uk "You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the grim reaper" - Robert Alton Harris

[Lost User]

I have a plastic cover over my keyboard to protect it from drool. What were we talking about again?

[xperroni]

Richard Andrew x64 wrote:

Has anyone else noticed a decrease in their mental abilities due to relying on technology?

Much on the contrary: I feel that technology has allowed me to leverage what mental abilities I do have, while compensating for those I lack (rote learning, mostly). It's just like Dr. Kusanagi [^] said: "The machines (...) are the hands and we are the head. Only together do we make humanity."

"Whereas smaller computer languages have features designed into them, C++ is unusual in having a whole swathe of functionality discovered, like a tract of 19th century Africa." -- Verity Stob http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/05/cplusplus\_cli/

[Stefan_Lang]

Daily Mail wrote:

They say that teenagers have become so reliant on digital technology they are no longer able to remember everyday details such as their phone numbers.

Of course they won't memorize phone numbers! Why should they if their smart phones and computers are much more capable and reliable at performing that job for them? There's plenty of other stuff to remember, why waste valuable resources on stuff that modern devices can handle? Tomorrows news: "Cars cause degrade in chinese farmers' physical fitness" (because they drive to town rather than walk 10km every day in order to sell their stuff) And the day after: "Ticket machines degrade commuters' conversational skills" :doh:

[PSU Steve]

The biggest thing I notice is that since I type almost everything these days, my handwriting sucks. I'm not sure I can write legible cursive anymore and after about five minutes of writing (printing) my hand starts to cramp.

[lewax00]

Herbie Mountjoy wrote:

I was absolutely hopeless at history, geography and languages because they relied on memory.

I had the same issues with history and geography, but I always assumed it was because I had no interest in them. Language has been a more divided thing for me. I can speak my own, and learning new ones hasn't posed much of a problem (of course, then I don't use them and forget, but that's a different issue), but I'm terrible at writing, poetry, and the detailed stuff like breaking down sentences into clauses, stressed/unstressed syllables, etc. Problem is, most schools teach languages with a focus on the stuff I never really grasped in English, which makes it a lot harder to learn another language in that setting. Stuff like Rosetta Stone feels a bit more natural to me, they don't even bother to explain it, they just throw you in and let your brain make the connections on it's own.

[Simon ORiordan from UK]

I find myself adapting my strengths to the digital assistance. For example, I have a photographic recall of maps. But I get the maps from Google, so that I only have to remember the essential areas. As for 'digital dementia', I really .......c.....c.....not able say.

[ssadler]

This seems pretty obvious. The old adage that "If you don't use it, you lose it" seems to be true. Most abilities or skills need practice or use to be maintained. Both the brain and the body seem to work this way. If I stop my weight training, my muscle mass decreases and my strength decreases. I use to know the whole Z80 instruction set by the numbers (god I'm getting old!), but that's a pretty useless skill these days so since I don't use it, I don't remember the numbers. Now if I could only figure out how to exercise hair!!

[RedDk]

Nah, You don't want to exercise your hair, you want to relax your hair. Try a hair softener.

ssadler wrote:

god I'm getting old

Do you have any hair?