The digital age is not making us stupid, says University of Cincinnati social/behavioral expert Anthony Chemero. “Despite the headlines, there is no scientific evidence that shows that smartphones and digital technology harm our biological cognitive abilities,” says the professor of philosophy and psychology who recently co-authored a paper stating such in Nature Human Behaviour. In the paper, Chemero and colleagues at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management expound on the evolution of the digital age, explaining how smart technology supplements thinking, thus helping us to excel, reports Phys.org. “What smartphones and digital technology seem to do instead is to change the ways in which we engage our biological cognitive abilities,” Chemero says, adding “these changes are actually cognitively beneficial.” For example, he says, your smartphone knows the way to the baseball stadium so that you don’t have to dig out a map or ask for directions, which frees up brain energy to think about something else. The same holds true in a professional setting: “We’re not solving complex mathematical problems with pen and paper or memorizing phone numbers in 2021.”
so, is the title used in your article headline an attribution to the story content, or done tongue firmly planted in your cheek, by spelling dumber as dummer?
Tongue in cheek, David. I like to have fun with headlines on occasion, and that one seemed appropriate. I serve our members, though, so always willing to accept it may not have worked 🙂