Technology has a dumbing down effect

IS TECHNOLOGY – the internet, mobile phones, computers, and social media – actually destroying individualism in today’s children?

When none of these modern devices were around, our kids came from different families, different backgrounds, different areas. Most of these households were interconnected to a small degree, depending on whether they were apartments, sets of economic houses or separate cottages.

The main meeting point for children was school. And since learners were coming from, quite often, completely different backgrounds, they learnt a little to copy words, mannerisms, even some skills from their peers. They obviously must have learnt also to mimic and emulate their parents.

Otherwise, they had no other recourse to muster up and fire their imagination, except by reading and listening to stories that mummy or daddy told them at bedtime. Some of these tales could have been fairy tales, legends from history, some religious stories.

Even mathematical problem solving was confined to struggling alone, with difficult concepts, some assistance from teacher and the rest from friends. History, Geography were listening intently to the educator, reading notes, memorising facts and some fiction.

Completing projects was almost impossible. Assistance from both parents was crucial but children at least learnt how to use a hammer and other simple tools, cut cardboard, use simple crayons and plasticine.

Compare this to the mannerism of today’s youngsters. The resigned “whatever” attitude with upward rolling of eyes that one sees uniformly on almost all TV sitcoms, cheap American movies and puerile comedies is common copy- cat behaviour that is a standard fixture internationally. Private personalities have disappeared.

Google gives all the answers. How to construct any project, from making a matchbox to a working, full- size Jules Verne time machine, from a simple electric circuit to a full size nuclear plant.

Or even easier, social media tells wealthy kids where to take their bourgeois parents to purchase a ready-made project kit.

The problem is nearly anybody that can afford data has access to the same idea. Ask children to write about a famous past hero, and all kids will home in on the same facts. Very little personal and varied research is done.. Encyclopedias are seldom used. Libraries hardly visited. This modern system numbs the senses. Kills enthusiasm. Destroys brain cells.

Most children and many parents do not bother reading the newspaper or watch news on TV. Many children pretend they are doing their homework when they are very busy shooting down some robotic monster on PlayStations.

This definitely makes them very skilful with their fingers. Makes them computer literate. Very handy with mobile cellphones, quite often teaching parents a trick or two.

The only problem is that all this computer proficiency numbs individual imagination. That is the unfortunate cost of advanced technology .