by Charlotte A. Cavatica

Created on: October 31, 2008

As someone whose age matches Microsoft's, I can truly claim that I grew up in the Computer Age. My first system was a Commodore 64; it played games like Buck Rogers on a cassette tape. I remember taking computer classes in 1986 where our "mouse" was a triangular cursor on a black screen and we were taught how to move it by typing in commands like "R 25" and "L 15". I discovered a whole community of music fans like myself through

AOL's interest-targeted chat rooms. Today, I share photos, links to articles and videos play games and keep up with friends and family via social networking sites like Facebook. To me, the notion that technology impoverishes the mind is akin to claiming that exercise weakens the body or that travel narrows one's world view - its complete nonsense.

While some may argue that technology makes things "too easy", thereby contributing to the dumbing down of our societal culture, that's a misleading and inaccurate representation of the role technology plays in the 21st century. Technology in and of itself is not a solution to our problems; it doesn't remove us from intellectually-challenging situations. Technology is an enabler; it's a tool that can help remove obstacles preventing us from moving toward solving our problems. Take, for example, the obstacles a curious child in the 1980s would have to navigate just to learn something new.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

When I was about 11 years old, I saw the movie Young Sherlock Holmes and developed a fascination and curiosity around Egypt and mummies. Like every other kid from my generation, learning about something new involved a trip to the library:

Step 1: Flip through the subject card catalogue and compile a healthy list of titles that sound promising

Step 2: Spend 10-20 minutes hunting through the book shelves for those chunks of Dewey decimals that indicate you're in the right general area to begin looking for the titles on your list.

Step 3: Provided some of the books are actually there and not checked out (the best sounding ones always were), carefully examine any information found on the back cover for clues that the book might be worth reading.

Step 4: After figuring out which books made the cut, take your carefully-won booty to the librarian for check out and hope you could get through reading everything before they'd be due back in 2 weeks.

Had I been a less curious kid, I might not have put myself through the trouble to learn something I didn't need to know for one of my classes at school. I honestly envy today's kids - if I were a kid again and could look up anything I wanted at any time, I'd probably be a genius now, which brings me back to my original point: technology doesn't inhibit intelligence or deprive the mind of challenging quandaries in need of solutions. Technology enables knowledge, it fosters collaboration (online communities, grassroots campaigns), engenders efficiency (online conferences, document sharing), enhances creativity (web site design, video games) and aids in problem solving (green technologies, like hydrogen fuel cells). To claim that technology impoverishes the mind, to me, sounds like a fearful warning from someone who has yet to understand or realize the potential inherent in progressive thinking.

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