Digital Alzheimer

"The more an individual relies on digital technology, the less interpersonal and physical abilities one has"

Hello Everyone,

I have been writing on some serious topics so thought will take a break and write on a little less serious topic. This idea came to my mind yesterday when I was making a word doc. My mind was actually occupied somewhere else and hence I was making a lot of typing mistakes but bless Bill Gates for providing such a great in-built correction tool which many times doesn't even let the writer know that mistakes were made. So I am happy that i can ignore my typing mistakes but is my 'brain' happy???? 

Well I will have to ask my brain (Still not sure how I will do it??) for that and if my brain is as lazy as I am then it will probably give me a thumbs up and a big smile. But jokes aside and on a serious note I am sure its not the brains which are lazy it's us who make our brains lazy. And how we are making our brains lazy? Simple we are surrounded by so many tools which we can use instead of using our brains. Things like calculators, google, office softwares etc are deteriorating our memory and making us weak.

Just to prove my point I will ask a simple question. How many phone numbers from your mobile you can recite. Many people won't be able to recite more than 3-4 numbers. There are some people who actually make an effort to remember many numbers. Then there are also some people who don't even remember their own number. Surprised but its a reality. I have come across such people. I have suffered from the goodness of digital technology myself and so I will put down my experience. When I was in class 10th I had commerce as subject. We used to have questions on accounting which required a lot of number additions. When I was at home I used the calculators to speed up my work. But the same usage brought my speed down in the exams and my grades suffered because of it.

I learnt a lesson from this and made it a point to use my brains always. I then learned vedic mathematics to engage my brain into rigorous activities. Other means were puzzles and reading books etc. But how many of us actually realize that these technologies are deteriorating our interpersonal abilities and our gray matter. Everyone must have heard of the Alzheimers disease. Its when a person starts losing his/ her memory slowly with time. I think we are slowly suffering the digital equivalent of it because of our over reliance on digital technologies.

And please don't take me wrong, I an not against the digital technologies. I use a lot of them myself but where do we draw the line. Parents are handing digital gadgets in the hands of the kids - nothing wrong with that but it becomes an issue when they fail to keep a check. When I was in MBA I doubt anyone did their final project without using google. Whatever they got on google they could also easily get in a library. Agreed but also remember that our previous generations did not have a google to support them and they in many cases did far better than us.

We are entering a Digital Alzheimer's age where technology is making us losing our memory. People argue that saving time is important but I say saving your brain is also important.

Thanks,
Genie Signing off
email: arunesh.genie@gmail.com