By Andy Quintana |Staff Writer|
Technology can make people lose focus of there surrounding. Here is an example.
The San Francisco Gate reported the Sept. 23, shooting death of a 20-year-old man by a 30-year-old suspect, in an apparent random encounter inside a crowded Muni train.
While the suspect allegedly waved his gun around, dozens of passengers remained engaged on their smartphones and tablets. Then he randomly shot and killed someone.
We have become so dependent on our technology that we cannot even be aware of our surroundings.
We aren’t even conscious when there is a gun just a few feet away.
Student Danny Cruz agrees.
“My iPhone is my life, my baby,” said Cruz. “I don’t think technology has made us dumber, but it has made us lazy.”
Technology has the potential to make us lose our natural ability to survive with out it, but it also has given us many strengths, such as the ability to talk to someone that isn’t in the same room as you let alone the same country as you.
The Wall Street Journal Market Watch section presented the idea of technology from University College London Psychologist Tomas Charmorro-Premuzic, who explained how technology has assisted in increased intellect for people throughout generations.
“The average child today would be almost gifted by 1950s standards, but that’s just in terms of their fluid intelligence or ability to process complex information quickly and effectively,” said Charmorro-Premuzic.
Student Shadya Qasem took both sides in the possibilities of how technology has affected us, then and now.
It has made us dumber in the sense that many of us are unaware of how previous generations would retrieve resources without technology,” said Qasem.
“On the other hand, it has made us smarter, because we are exposed to innovative ways of attaining information, making us able to grasp today’s knowledge in a much faster way.”
With technology innovations, there may be a possibility that we may lose certain skills in the process.
Student Lupe Alatorre mentioned the lack of verbal communication technology brings upon, “I feel that we’re losing that sense of communicating with one another.”
Other students also weighed in on the topic.
“I feel like it’s made us dumber, we research everything,” said student Joel Rodriguez.
“It’s good for certain things, but we start to lose our common sense.”
Student Jessica Payne felt that technology has assisted in our lives, from our entertainment, to our jobs, and our education, “We have such technology that memorizes for us, but with new inventions, it’s also educating us.”
PBS’ NextAvenue.org brought to light how technology not necessarily makes us dumber or smarter, but is based solely on how we use it
“Just because you can Google the date of Black Tuesday doesn’t mean you understand why the Great Depression happened or how it compares with our recent economic slump,” said NextAvenue.org
NextAvenue.org continued to explain how the internet, in how we use it, can be both “our best friend —or a true enemy of deep, critical thinking.”
While use of technology has increased our intelligence it has also made us dependent upon its use.
Because we depend upon its use we fail to pay attention to our surroundings because we are to busy looking at our gadgets.
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