Technology and Mental Obesity

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Technology and Mental Obesity

• Julian Parham Santana
• Professor King Dykeman and Dennis Hodgson
• Progress and its Critics
• 12/2/08

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• Technology Progress
• Easy
• Efficient
• Effortless
• Technology Mental Obesity
• Desensitized
• Dehumanized
• Mentally out of shape

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High Tech but Low Touch

• Always connected
• Limited physical interaction
• Limited mental and
• physical activity
• Impersonal communication

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Life is Too Good

• Software does it all
• Spelling and grammar check
• Graph and table creator
• Art and music software
• Weaken speech and grammar skills
• No attention to style and composition
• Losing hands-on artistic skill

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• Looks like your spell check was turned off when
  you prepared your resume.

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Search Made Simple

• Search engines make researchers lazy
• No first-hand observation
• Skimming rather than reading
• Sacrificing ability to interpret information
• Losing sense of direction

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A Virtual Marketplace

• Anything can be bought on Internet
• No need to leave home
• Thrill of collecting diminished

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Sports Tech Changing the Game

• Technology changing
• many sports
• Swimming
• Anti-wave ropes
• Ozone-treated water
• LZR racer suit
• Bowling
• Synthetic lane surfaces
• Reactive resin bowling balls

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Shortcuts to Perfection

• Everything must be perfected technologically
• Condorcet would be disappointed
• Tools could make us more intellectual but we use
  them to cheat our way out of exercising our minds
• Malthus would be disappointed
• Would see technology today as a way of avoiding
  the evil that promotes activity

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What Will Happen if Technology is Taken from Us?

• A modern societys infrastructure would shutdown
• People would not be able to perform jobs

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Northeast Blackout of 2003
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Blackout as Opportunity

• Human interaction and active thinking
• Families together by candlelight
• Classic board games
• Reading and critical thinking

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Not Too Late to get Mentally Fit

• Technological tools can deaden our minds or make
  us smarter and more productive
• Make an effort to put our minds to work and learn
  rather than forget
• Use the extra time and convenience technology
  affords to exercise our minds

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Avoid Mental Obesity

• Train Your Brain