Technology is making memorization and human data retrieval obsolete

Last night I was hanging out with a friend. We were talking about an old friend from college and I said I thought his birthday was coming up in the next few days. She had no idea and turned immediately to her phone to look it up. I realized that I am becoming one of the few that still relies on my memory for this type of information.

I had a similar discussion with one of my colleagues recently. She wanted to make a phone call and had to use her phone to look up the number. She made a comment like "I don't remember any phone numbers anymore." Because cell phones have so many capabilities these days, people are using them as information retrieval systems and are letting their brains go to waste.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not being critical of my colleague or my friend here. All of the people in my department are very intelligent and they use their brains more than most people in society. (We are all college instructors - math in particular.) My friend also majored in mathematics in college, so she has good critical thinking abilities as well.

Anyway, so after thinking about these two instances, I began to realize something about my students. Because society has become so reliant on ALL technology, the newer generations have weaker abilities to memorize in general. If they aren't required to do it in school AND they see their parents turning to technology every time they need an answer to something, what do we expect?

One reason I am concerned is because this is severely hurting students mathematical abilities. Students never fully learn their multiplication tables and it puts them at a disadvantage when learning fractions, algebra, etc. If you never learn the basics, there is no way you can build on them. And, that is all mathematics is - building on previous concepts.

Another reason I am concerned is if society keeps going this way, we will be creating generations of NON-THINKERS. They will want the information to be given to them or to be immediately accessible. (Technology is also causing us to lose patience, which is a topic for another post.)

How are we going to continue to develop as a society if no one can think? This really concerns me.

I am proud of the fact that I do not rely on technology to remember birthdays and phone numbers, do basic data retrieval or basic calculations. I still balance my check book BY HAND. I think that is a great exercise for the brain.

I encourage anyone who reads this to put down the cell phone and USE YOUR BRAIN! Your brain is just like a muscle, if you don't exercise it, it loses its strength and power. A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE!!!