A NEW SERIES: Observations and Ruminations
No 1: Is Our Dependency on Gadgetry Making Us Stupid?
By Srianee Dias (who is the "brains" behind this idea)
Lately, I have noticed that the various gadgets I have acquired in the recent past are making me stupid. Yes, it may be a moot point, but I blame the gadgets!
My new electric toothbrush beeps when it is time to change the brush! So, why bother to remember?
I recently decided to lease a car that I have been eyeing for a long time. It is a sporty sedan - no more SUVs, which are too clunky and clumsy for me! The problem is that the car communicates with me and seems to be taking over my brain. I realize that most cars these days are designed with these so-called ‘safety features’, but the downside of it is that the drivers do not have to think or use their own judgement anymore. Will that lead to brain atrophy and speed up the onset of dementia? I am worried…
There is a setting in my car which alerts me when I drift lanes. Maybe I need it, but even a slight shift sets off the beep. It is irritating, so I have switched it off!
Recently the fuel level went down to 1/4 and I received a text message
on my phone which said “Your fuel level is low!” I made a quick trip to the gas station,
because I was concerned that the next message would be one scolding me or
threatening me.
Yes, there are some good safety features too. When I turn on the indicator to switch lanes, I hear a loud beep if someone is in the lane next to me. I usually know this fact ahead of time because I have checked the rearview mirror. I do this to indicate my intention to the driver in the next lane. But my car assumes that I am negligent and beeps so loudly that it startles me. On the contrary, the beeps that occur when I reverse out of a parking spot, and someone walks behind my car are well appreciated.
With all these computers making up the intrinsic innards of a car, glitches are inevitable. A few days ago, a message appeared on my dashboard screen. “Schedule an Oil Change” was the message. What? The car is barely 2 months old and I have not even reached 2000 miles! When I called, the person at the service department of the dealership suggested that I ignore the message and show up for the regular service when I reached 10,000 miles. “No way” was my response. I didn’t want this message flashing in my face every time I started the car. So off I went to the dealership and they reset the computer in just a few minutes.
Don’t even get me started on GPS navigation! This is an ongoing argument within my family. I find my way to unfamiliar destinations by consulting maps (sometimes the paper kind and often Google/Apple maps on my computer) before I set out on my journey. I like to get a visual image of my trip. Sometime I write the instructions down on a piece of paper, which helps me remember the street names and the turns. Getting behind the wheel of my car and trusting Siri or some other computer voice to guide me blindly to my destination is not comfortable for me. I guess I am somewhat of a dinosaur, but I tell my younger relatives that their over-dependency on navigation systems will lead to atrophy of their hippocampi. Alas, nobody pays attention to my advice!
_______________________________________________________________
NOTE from Speedy- Please send me your contribution on any topic based on your observations and ruminations.
Hello Srianee
ReplyDeleteI quite agree with you.In 2014 I decided to purchase a sporty red sedan which converted to a racing car from normal mode! Very ambitious. Had dreams of taking it to the Philip Island racing track but when the salesman told me that all safety features cancel out in race mode I abandoned that idea. Recently I stopped over for a Chinese takeaway & when I returned to the car the engine wouldn't start and the dashboard read "check auto gear box" I began to panic as I have no idea as to where this gear box is. So I phoned a male family member to come over and when I returned to the car the computer had reset and the engine started!
The last straw was when I had a flat tyre a few months ago when I had parked away from home. Not knowing what to do this I slow drove to my dealer nearby and waited 6 hours for the roadside assist man to arrive & do the needful,only to be told my sporty car had no spare tyre, only a repair kit & he advised me to have the car towed to the tyre repair shop. I sold that car & now own a sensible white sedan which has the annoying habit of informing me that there is a red light camera ahead or that a railway crossing is coming up as if I cannot see that for myself.
I too don't trust the GPS it takes me through ditches and small unfamiliar by roads so I draw a map as to how I can get to my destination. It seems better to stay at home sometimes.
Virginia, such a delightful surprise to read your comment. I hope you are well and enjoyimg life. I still have my 13 year old faithful Lexus 250 as it is devoid of unnecessary gadgetry. I know so many who had warnings appear of their dashboard because the warning system was faulty and reported faults where there was none! This reminds me of the "wolf! wolf! story in a neonatial unit where the midwife just ignored the warning sound saying "oh just ignosre it, it is always going off1". Technology is great but should be applied correctly.
DeleteVirginia, it is so good to hear from you from down under! I'm sorry that you gave up on your sporty red sedan, but I agree it is really annoying when the car acts as if it has more brains than you! I love driving my new car, but those messages that flash on the dashboard are going to drive me a little bit nuts. Yes, the newer cars do not have spare tires (tyres!) but one can drive a distance of about 50 miles at 50 mph on those "run-flat" tires. If that happens to me, I may have to use my GPS navigation to find a repair shop!
ReplyDeletePlease stay in touch on the blog. I will try to email you sometime.
Srianee, I agree with you in general. A general grouse I have is that techmology is directed more and more towards making money, not necessarily towards making our lieves better. They are inventing mire and more “solutions” for which they are looking for problems. In the case of the moror car, there have been many useful innovations such as better breaking systems, better fuel efficiency, better tyres (ties!) which are safer and loner lasting but at the same time, pretty usleless things like some of the thungs you mentioned. When more tnan 75% of the World is starving, when 90% of the wealth of Nations is concentrated in less than 2% of the population, there are better things for us to direct our enerbies. In a profit driven, consumer society, sadly this is the result. We need a good capitalist/socialist mix with more regulation and limits on profits and a fairer taxation system and most of all, the building of a culture in which our children grow up where what is important is not the number of Facebook friends you have, or your beauty charateristics or your football club/hero, your wealth but your character, responsibility towards making your community a better one. The Scandinavian countries are far more advanced in this aspect- morality matters!
ReplyDeleteexcuse the profusion of typos! most careless of me
DeleteMahen, thanks for your comment, but you didn't really answer the question whether our dependency on technology will lead to "disuse atrophy" of some of our faculties. Young people who use their cell phones all the time seem to lose their ability to interact with other people in a normal way. I agree with you that some of these technological "advances" seem to be designed merely to make money. They claim to simplify our lives, but they really end up complicating our lives.
DeleteHigh-tech gadgets are marketed in a manner which make people want to own them to feel "cool!"
Thank you Srianee and Mahendra for your kind words. With some difficulty I was able to enter a comment as I'm not tech savvy. Will try and keep in touch
ReplyDeleteDear Srianee, Virginia and Mahendra, I enjoyed reading your comments regarding modern gadgetry. Virginia, this is my very first communication with you, although I first met you more than 60 years back.. Being a champion swimmer for Ceylon, I was far too timid to communicate with you in whatever way!
ReplyDeleteI drive around in an old electric Nissan Leaf, which does not have any of these gadgets. This car also has no spare wheel. Earlier I used a Toyota CHR, which also had no spare wheel. After a experiencing a tyre puncture, I used the repair kit to close the puncture and when I wanted to replace the repair kit, I was informed that it would cost more than the expenditure for a new tyre. I ended up purchasing a spare wheel and carrying it in the boot.
Sanath, thank you for joining in this discussion. It really bothers me when we have to pay for all these fancy "advances" which really end up making our lives more complicated. When I downsized and moved into my smaller home, I decided to buy a new washer and dryer. An year later, a few weeks after the guarantee had expired, my washing machine malfunctioned and needed to be repaired. The repair guy said it was a "computer part" that needed to be replaced and gave me an estimate for the cost, which came very close to the price of a new washing machine. I ended up buying a new washing machine, and the one year old machine ended up in a land fill, I suspect. The 20 year old machines I had sold along with my home had simple dials that I turned, no LED displays. I really wished that I had kept them.
DeleteSanath, I think you should hang on to that old Nissan Leaf as long as possible and give it Tender Loving Care!
Dear Sanath
ReplyDeleteYes, this is my first communication with you and it seems that many fellow batch mates felt that way, no need for it! But you are now an eminent academic.
I too was advised by a female friend to put a spare wheel in the boot, but there is no space for it in that car. Maintaining aging European cars in Oz is expensive, much easier to sell it, and purchase a Japanese car here. I'm a bit of a car enthusiast!!
Hello again Virginia, I am a bit of a car enthusiast myself, and often enjoy my solitude, driving along long, hilly country roads in Connecticut. I enjoy controlling my car, not the other way around, when the car tries to control me! I'm afraid that sooner than later we'll be in the same situation that the astronauts in "2001: A Space Odyssey" found themselves in, when HAL 9000, the computer took over!!
DeleteI'd like to know how other people feel. We should be controlling the technology, don't you think?
Srianee, you correctly pointed out that I have not really answered your question. This is the way I see it. Of course we will lose some of our skills (visuo-spatial for example) but I doubt whether it would lead to "disuse atrophy" as we wil still retain a lot of skills that require that type of skill. Having said that , we will become less efficient because we have filled the gaps with technology but that will manifest as loss in the sort of skills we possesed as car drivers in the sensible era! If we go back to past history, carpenters and farmers had skills which we have mostly lost now. If you go back even futher to the Amazon rain forests and the Incas, they had amazing navigational skills which we just cannot match. The human animal will continue to evolve and adapt but we must not forget that evolution time scales are massive. We are not talking of even thousands of years, far far more than that.
ReplyDeleteI like GPS unlike you but I always look at a map before I journey and have some idea of where I am heading, In the pre-GPS days, I had a transparent polythenes sheet about half an A4 and I jotted my path from A (start) to Z (destination) with a marker pen as various road names (such as A56-->A--4 --M6--> B234 --> etc. This was pasted on my windscreen so that I could see it and also see through it.
I still have the comfort that even if my GPS fails, I know how to read a map and find my way, But overall, I like GPS as it also gives live traffic information, If GPS was removed, I would miss it,
As to the other silly systems you mentioned. I agree with you , they are more a source of annoyance than help!
I hope I have answered your questions.
Thank you Mahen, for your historical and evolutionary perspective. it is always appreciated.
DeleteI also love your idea of writing directions on a transparent sheet and fixing it to the windshield! I agree that the live traffic updates given by some GPS systems are very useful. But there are times when the navigation system guides you to go down a particular street and you realize it is a oneway street and you cannot go that way!
I am not against technological progress, but I think technology should be used judiciously and sensibly.