Is technology destroying our mental processes?

As a person who has used technology of one kind or another in office work for more than 40 years I think I am experienced enough to comment on such a question.

Recently I listened to my husband and mentally disabled son playing chess (jointly) with someone else over the internet. THey were also using a computer chess programme to guide them with their moves.

Now both my husband and son are very capable chess players, and I have to say that if they were part of a chess club would be star players. However, I listened as they took the nmove the chess programme gave and then looked at why such a move had been made. Yes, they did learn some new situations through this, but it also encouraged them to expect help from another source in deciding what move to make. They stopped working out for themselves the possible move.

This may seem to be quite insignificant in many instances. especially as they have both taught themselves chess to a high standard without computer guidance, but for new people just beginning to learn chess this is not the way to learn, especially when they are supposed to be playing a human being, not a computer.

Unfortunately, far too many chess games played over the internet have human players using computers to help them with the game and their ratings.

Ah but it's just a game, someone may say, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Young people especially are being encouraged to use a computer for the least mental calucation, and rely on it for making decisions. This does not encourage mental agility within the thinking processes and teaches that they are not capable of working it out for themselves but must rely on others or a machine with their choices.

Yet it is people with these attitudes which are being placed in our higher postions of authority and decision making, and if they are relying on being told how to think, how to decide, then it does not bode well for society, and certainly takes away a mental independence that used to exist within the human brain.

I am not specifically cleverer than others, in fact I am quite average in many ways, especially as I am getting older and my brain is deteriorating just like other parts of my body, but I do still remember the regular rote learning of the multiplication tables, the recitations I had to learn, the various little rhymes and songs which encompassed many rules of grammar or scientific principles. These were the backbone of the learning process.

In the past shop keepers could calculate in their heads the total cost of the goods people bought, today the young people in these same roles have a calculator by their side as they find it difficult to calculate mentally two figures together and come up with a total.

When it comes to adminstrative or call centre procedures there are a set of regulations that must be obeyed at all costs and if a situation arises that these procedures don't cover people are unable to deal with the problem. They are not taught how to think for themselves, or truly understand the system so that where appropriate the system can be sidestepped to a different part of the procedures and so enable an outcome to be achieved.

People are thinking like machines, but have a very limited understanding of what their own brains can do, and have been encouraged to believe that machines are better than humans. This is not the case. The machines are only as good as the information the humans put into them, and if the humans make mistakes when doing this so will the machines. Also, the machines are built to do one main function, which they do pretty quickly, however, humans are built to do many thinks similtaneously so I consider humans to be far superior in that sense than machines.

Meanwhile, we must start accepting that humans can think in many ways just as well as machines, and in some instances even better. Perhaps because we have two parts to our brain, similar to two processors working in tandem and maybe able to do two or more tasks at the same time.

We are also quite small, compact, in our physical development considering the range of tasks we can do.

I remember reading an article about a Japanese company which decided that it would be economically more viable to change back from a robot controlled factory to a human controlled one. The reason given was that it took too long to reprogramme successfully all the robots for a new product. Humans on the other hand are more adaptable and learn the tasks more quickly, saving time and money and getting a new product on the shelves sooner so bringing income into the company far quicker. One up for the humans I think.