Thread: Is technology making us smarter?

On one hand we in the 21st century have all the worlds information at our fingertips (literally a google search away).

But on the other hand technology has made us addicted to entertainment and trivial things like celebrity gossip. It pains me to see my family in the same room but in completely different worlds, watching tv, texting, posting shit on dreamviews
It seems we are unable to tell truth from farce anymore(Baudrillard's hyperreality) because of photoshop and similar technologies.
Kids my age don't even have the attention span to read books anymore.

Technology has always been a double edged sword but is this the future we had in mind?

Originally Posted by stormcrow

books

What? Are those things still around?

PICK IT UP. A BOOK!

But seriously now has anyone else noticed that entertainment is the new heroin? We have to be constantly stimulated by tv, internet, etc.

I don't think that technology is making us more or less intelligent. I think that people that attempt to understand the science behind the technology know more about the world than any generation has before and I think that understanding things like programming can increase our logic and problem solving skills.

Ultimately, we're just monkeys and most people don't pursue those paths. They stick to gossip and other social concerns because that's what our brains seem to be wired for. The presence of television, movies, the internet and the intimate glimpses that these things give us into the lives of celebrities just lets us transfer this instinct onto people that aren't part of our social circles. This is not new, just extended. I imagine that European peasants speculated about the private affairs of the aristocratic class. We just have cameras. So I don't think that it makes us dumber or makes us pursue less worthy goals, I think that it just makes the things that most of us do pursue a little more inane in contrast to the things that we could persue.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I think that it just makes the things that most of us do pursue a little more inane in contrast to the things that we could persue.

I couldn't agree more. Its fine if that is what people are interested in but I think we will be in trouble when there are more paparazzi than scientists.

What you said reminds me of an experiment on monkeys, where they were given the choice between morphine or food and of course they chose the morphine every time. Similarly given the choice between healthy food and junk food most people choose the latter. They are both available but you are right we are wired that way.

@Kookyinc and Alric For the most part I agree I think in some ways it has made us smarter (My intelligence definately benefits from dreamviews conversations) but at the same time has dissociated us from reality similar to the example I used wtih my family being "wired in" all the time. But do you agree or disagree that technology is somewhat responsible for our addiction to entertainment?

Originally Posted by stormcrow

But do you agree or disagree that technology is somewhat responsible for our addiction to entertainment?

People likely have always been addicted to trivial entertainment, but I will admit that technology has made it easier for those people to be addicted to said entertainment. 500 years ago, everyone in Europe was working in a field for 12 hours a day, so there wasn't much time to gossip. Now, we have enough free time so that those people already inclined to be interested in fart jokes actually will have the time to enjoy them. And, of course, now we have the time so that smart people can spend hours every day watching recorded lectures from MIT.

How do you define smart?
Here is my reply if smart = intelligence. Technology insofar has had little effect on the intelligence of individuals. Granted, large industries using technology to produce things like alcohol which, if ingested during pregnancy, may make individuals have some mental defects, but I think that this sort of thing happens rarely enough that it may be ignored. Humans have always been interested in the ridiculous farces in life; Shakespeare, the greatest playwright in the English language, wrote comedy for poor people who liked sex jokes. Technology just makes it easier for us to get to those entertaining bits. This has had no effect on intelligence.
Here is my reply if smart = amount of knowledge. Technology makes it so that the entire world of knowledge is at one's fingertips with the internet. Want to learn each president's name in order? Google it. You'll find loads of tricks about how to do so. Want to learn calculus? iTunes has a video-university thing now that can help. I and many others have learned countless things from the internet. In the past, this knowledge could only be attained by happening to have the right book at the library. Not anymore. Some twits gargle in front of Fox News everyday and systematically have their brains turned to trash, but again, the majority of people at least appear to use the tools around them to increase their amount of knowledge. So here, I think that technology has made individuals smarter.
Here is my reply if smart = interest in intelligent forms of entertainment. Again, Shakespeare made fun of people with stutters, and his primary audience was the uneducated. There are always people who will laugh at the intelligent jokes, and there are always people who laugh at the unintelligent jokes. I don't think that technology has made people less smart.

Ultimately, I think that technology has made us smarter, or at least has not made us dumber, as individual human beings.

Of course it is making us far smarter than ever before, and we are doing greater things by the day. Technology is like 90% good, and 10% bad, and the bad part is usually because of people abusing it, not from the technology itself being inherently bad.

Also the books comment isn't really fair because there is so much reading on the internet. We might be seeing a move from reading novels to reading short stories and articles on the internet, but you can't really say that is a bad thing. If you look at Wikipedia, it is pretty obvious it is searched and read far more often than an encyclopedia ever was. It isn't even a contest, even before the internet no one ever pulled out their encyclopedia and just started reading entries in it. People do that on wikipedia all the time however.

Technology makes it possible for us to enjoy entertainment. If we didn't have so much technology we would be spending a lot more time on things like getting food. All the stuff that makes our life easier saves us a lot of time, and with that extra time we are free to relax and enjoy entertainment. Honestly I don't think people are really addicted to tv and stuff. Normally they watch it when they are bored, not because they need to.

I read an article by Steven Pinker.... never mind just found it here http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/op...=1&ref=opinion

I agree with him.

Technology isn't making anyone dumber. It gives us readily available information. We spend less time looking for it (flipping through a fucking huge encyclopedia to find half a page of info vs typing what you want and finding several pages and links to extended information explaining what you were originally reading and related things etc.) and more time reading it and learning it.

The only people that use all their time on gossipy sites and watching mind numbing tv shows are the people who gossip anyway and would gossip without any technology.

In other words, trivial people will spend all their time pursuing trivial information, such as other people's lives.
Intelligent people with a thirst for knowledge and a hunger to understand the universe will spend their time learning about the universe.

Technology won't change this.

Just pointing out that something is definitely making us smarter. In an objective sense IQs have been steadily rising since records began.

Originally Posted by Xei

Just pointing out that something is definitely making us smarter. In an objective sense IQs have been steadily rising since records began.

Source? Not doubting you, just interested.

Originally Posted by Xei

Just pointing out that something is definitely making us smarter. In an objective sense IQs have been steadily rising since records began.

I think that mainly has to do with the fact the information is readily available to most, if they bother to look that is. So, with that in mind, I'd say technology is helping the masses grow intellectually. But there are those select individuals who take a wrong turn and rot in the cesspool of the internet's backstreetsportals.

Originally Posted by GavinGill

I think that mainly has to do with the fact the information is readily available to most, if they bother to look that is. So, with that in mind, I'd say technology is helping the masses grow intellectually. But there are those select individuals who take a wrong turn and rot in the cesspool of the internet's backstreetsportals.

I think you need to make the distinction between knowledge, which is entirely acquired, and intelligence, which is roughly constant from childhood, and is what IQ measures.

Originally Posted by Xei

I think you need to make the distinction between knowledge, which is entirely acquired, and intelligence, which is roughly constant from childhood, and is what IQ measures.

He didn't mention either intelligence or knowledge....

Flynn effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Inb4 the person who comes in without reading any of the previous posts and states that it is dumbing us all down and their consequent ownage.

The question itself is formed in such a way as to incur the self-referential fallacy. We make technology, therefore we are what we make of ourselves--which means that we are the product of our choices. In this nothing has changed. We have more to choose from, the fact that most make poor choices is nothing new.

Well, if you're capable of actually understanding the meaning of what he said rather than looking for specific words... information on the internet will obviously increase your knowledge, not intelligence.

Mention, use the exact words, make reference to or suggest. I agree with you, but there was no point in saying it as it doesn't seem he disagrees either.

I'm lost. I said IQs were rising, he said this might be due to easier access to information, I said that this would make people more knowledgeable but wouldn't raise their IQs. I didn't intend to argue about this... I don't see the problem.

The Flynn effect is a fact, but whether it indicates that general intelligence is increasing is debatable. Since I am skeptical that IQ tests really capture what most of us would recognize as intelligence in the first place, I am of course also skeptical that the Flynn effect indicates rising intelligence. The explanation I favor is the one that the Wikipedia page labeled "schooling and test familiarity," that is, we have been spending more and more time in school and have been increasingly preoccupied with standardized testing of all sorts. So on my view, the Flynn effect reflects a steady increase in domain-specific knowledge as well as a healthy dose of practice effects (the value of which is not to be underestimated, mind you), but probably not a meaningful increase in general intelligence.

If you judge intelligence by your ability to function and learn, instead of what you score on a test, then yes technology has made people smarter. The ability to read is knowledge based, but I don't think anyone is going to argue that the ability to read, doesn't greatly improve your ability to function in the world. In fact all books are a product of technology. Without technology only a very few people would be able to read and we would all be ignorant.

Also IQ is based on averages. If everyone intelligence goes up your IQ remains the same. If the average adult increases their intelligence by 5 points by a set age and you increase your intelligence by 5 points by that age, your IQ would have remained the same.

Yeah IQ tests are not an accurate representation. But I don't know how one would measure intelligence.

Of course you could argue that learning, or learning how to learn (which is rarely taught these days, but some people pick it up by themselves) increases your intelligence, not just your knowledge.