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| No | 71% | 745 votes | Total: 1055 votes | |
| Yes | 29% | 310 votes |
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Add to FavoritesIt is easy to blame technology for limited intellectual curiosity, which is a sign of an impoverished mind. Impoverished minds actually exist long before a new technology is made available. In other cases, a lack of resources prevents access to technology in the first place!
With developments in mathematics, the vast majority of people would not , or could not learn to do even basic math. With the advent of printed material which allowed people to communicate to the masses, there were vastly majorities of individuals who could not, or would not learn how to read.
When television became popular, there was no sudden shortage of inventors, visionaries and other individuals who were more than capable of demonstrating that they watched television, yet still had incredibly rich minds. When television expanded from a handful of channels into a vast array of viewing options, curious minds which never bought into the lie that "television is a vast wasteland" became far from impoverished. Technology has allowed for special topic channels to supplement the original public educational channels with a vast array of educational material.
But there will still be people who won't watch television at all. Such people wonder how their television watching friends manage to know so much about the behavior of Meerkats, the history of Troy, the engineering that went into the Titanic, how clothing is designed and marketed, or what it is like to be a crab fisherman.
When the world wide web became accessable for more than military, university, scientific and medical applications, there were many who wanted nothing to do with computers. Many could not and still can not afford a computer or Internet access. And there will always be people who will limit their entire time on the computer to playing games, viewing pictures, or finding annoying new jokes to send to family and friends.
Technology has allowed the development and use of real world and virtual simulations. Pilots have learned to fly, surgeons can enhance their skills with virtual surgery, and city planners can do "what if" analysis.
All forms of education about history, music, the arts, medicine, law and the sciences are available thanks to technology. From down loadable books, to websites that are vast repositories of musical performances, technology offers much to the person who has intellectual curiosity to begin with.
Technology has caused one interesting new irritant that may actually be a giant help in intellectual development. Such activities as "texting", "tweeting" and chat are actually challenges to the language and communication centers of the brain. In the traditional chat groups, heaven help the writer who cannot spell or who has terrible grammar. Many an on line group participant or chat room denizen has had to step up their reading, writing, and spelling games in order to avoid serious chastisement.
Curiosity lead to learning new forms of shorthand which accommodated the limited capacities of the older cell phones. This was work that challenged and developed hand eye coordination as well as the language centers in the brain. A person who is curious about learning a foreign language can become quite fluent by chatting with very patient friends from around the world.
In summary, limited resources, including limited intellectual curiosity exists before the technology comes into being. These limitations prevent people from even trying new technologies. The vast majority of the poor or the incurious will never text, tweet, chat, or jump onto the next car in the technology train.
When it comes to the use of new technology, the cart always comes before the horse. It is exceptional intellectual curiosity, combined with the financial resources that allow people to use new technologies in the first place. And while some new technologies appear to encourage useless activity, they actually develop the intellect in surprising ways.
Learn more about this author, Elizabeth M. Young.
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Yes
Does technology impoverish the mind? In some ways, this is a double-edged question. If you look at it historically, the answer is both yes and no.
It's obvious that the industrialized world today cannot exist without technology. Everything from the Creative Arts to agriculture depends on it. It has changed the world, its effects sometimes positive and sometimes not.
Does anyone remember the days before cell phones? I do. I have one, and I rarely use it; I didn't grow up with it, so I'm not wholly used to it. But many people of this generation couldn't function without it.
I think it does say something about the overall mental condition of the human race if we can't leave the house, even for groceries, without our little phones. Likewise, I think it says something about us when we can't go one day without logging on to the Internet.
We can take this back to the advent of television and motion pictures. When that came along, everyone suddenly had an excuse not to read or to do any worthy activity (such as exploring nature). Everyone began to lock the world away and sit for hours staring at talking pictures.
One of the biggest signs of mental poverty I see is in the attention span. It seems you are well read nowadays with a cover-to-cover reading of a magazine. I know people who read online all the time, but they can't make their way through a four-hundred-page novel.
It makes me, as a novelist, wonder what the future of reading is. The whole point of a story is to become swept along, discovering new vistas, until you reach the climax. Am I the only one who believes that people want the climax first in today's world?
However, technology has helped bring our minds out of poverty at times. The invention of the printing press is a shining example of this.
For ages, the "civilized" world was full of illiteracy. With the advent of the printing press, common people had access to precious religious stories, poetry, educational texts, and other documents that they could study on their own and in their own time. I'd venture to guess that the level of common intelligence and the common attention span soared during this time.
If you look at ancient peoples, one thing they undisputedly had in common was a superior ability of mental focus. Building, painting, and other activities were long and laborious processes because they had to do things with their brains and hands.
In the last few decades, the number of people diagnosed with ADD or ADHD has grown tremendously. With the rise of technology, and its mind-spinning quickness, I guess it's no surprise.
Our society's motto might be, "Give me everything and give it to me yesterday," and this is linked directly to the rise of technology and the quickness of its growth.
I think we could all benefit by tearing ourselves away from the television or the monitor for a while and taking a long walk. The mind is like any machine, in that it needs rest now and then.
Some might say that's what sleep is for, but making a conscious effort to slow down and take a deep breath is far more beneficial than the latest celebrity scandal on the Web.
Learn more about this author, Jason Lusk.
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