Is Digital Technology Impairing Our Ability to Think Properly?

Is Digital Technology Impairing Our Ability to Think Properly?

I can't deny it, I admit that I am a bit of a slave to my smartphone. Being there for friends, family, clients and colleagues means that it rarely leaves my sight, and often requires my attention many times an hour, regardless of what else I need to focus on.

I'm sure that's a familiar scenario to many of you; while many readers are no doubt sighing heavily and wondering why I don't simply turn my phone off a little more often, or at least put it face down so it can't distract me

The simple answer to that question is that in today's always-on world, most people expect a response to their emails or texts within the hour, and will begin to either fret or fume if that doesn't happen. I often have messages, particularly from friends and colleagues, saying: “Why haven’t you answered that message, I know you permanently have your phone in your hand”, and that's just from the odd occasion I am actually fully engaged with something or someone else!

However, in addition to realising that what should be a handy tool is actually becoming a tiny tyrant, I am reading more and more reports that suggest our reliance on digital technology is not only likely to have a negative effect on our sleep patterns, but may also affect our short term memory functions, and therefore our levels of functional intelligence.

The Relationship of Memory to Intelligence 

Scientists have known for a long time that the depth of our 'intelligence' is directly related to our ability to transfer the things we have just learned, which sits in our short-term memory, into our long-term memory.

As Nicholas Carr put it in a Wired article in 2010: "When facts and experiences enter our long-term memory, we are able to weave them into the complex ideas that give richness to our thought."

The problem is that we are now so frequently disturbed and interrupted by the flow of digital information we receive that there is little time for recent facts and events to be 'recorded' into long-term memory.

To give you an example: how often have you received a phone call or a comment from a colleague while you were otherwise distracted, only to realise later that it went clean out of your head until they reminded you? Something I keep doing, which is even worse, is replying in my head to a text or comment and not actually doing it, just thinking I have done it!

The Importance of Exercising Your Memory

In addition to the damage caused to memory and therefore intelligence by information overload and the steady flow of distracting messages, I also believe that we are all losing the ability to remember things we used to take for granted.

When I was a youngster, I could remember all of my family and friends' phone numbers, not to mention most of their birthdays and postcodes. Yet, these days, I simply add that sort of information to my smartphone without a single digit registering on my consciousness. The best I seem to recall these days from a frequent caller is: “does your number end in 59?”, which are just two numbers recalled from a stream of at least 11 digits.

And lest you think that all this just means I'm beginning to get old, research indicates that these are far more likely to afflict millennials rather than, well, cusp-millennials such as myself.

In fact, recent data suggests that an excessive reliance on technology for fact-gathering and memory-related functions means that 15% of 18-34s are likely to forget what day it is, as opposed to just 7% of over-55s; while 14% of 18-34s frequently forget where they put their keys, compared to just 8% of over-55s.

What Was My Question Again?

It's fine, you don't have to scroll up to the top of the page. I'm almost certain that my question was: 'Is Digital Technology Impairing Our Ability to Think Properly?' or something very like that, anyway.

The answer, it seems to me is inescapable: while the digital age has given us access to so much information and such ease of communication, it is quite clearly taking away a little bit of our ability to think and remember properly in the process.

I really do think that it's worth us all stopping to think about what we really want from the digital age and our ever-present digital devices, and how that fits into a healthy work/life balance.

My most conscious effort moving forward will be to put my phone down and focus on the person in front of me, both in work and my personal life. And in work I will continue to use it as a tool to learn and communicate: while seeking to avoid vacuous content that isn't helping me to learn or function more effectively! However, the key thing I've learnt whilst writing this article is simply to slow down and be more mindful of your actions all the time, and when using your phone in particular.