When do our digital tools enhance our learning and when do they make us cognitively dependent? I enjoy my smart phone but don't ask me what my family's numbers are without it. It has become an appendage of my memory. I no longer memorize phone numbers. I rarely memorize email addresses since I can easily type in the first three letters of the address and my email provider finishes it for me. With digital tools we have all the necessary information at our fingertips without requiring much memory use on our part. I wonder how that changes the connections in our brain and how it affects the developing brains of our children.
Memorization benefits the culture of a people. It expands our learning capabilities, internalizes the musicality of language and deepens our understanding of self. The Greeks made memorization and recitation of poetry the foundation of their pedagogy. According to Michael Knox Beran, they discovered "that words and sounds—and the rhythmic patterns by which they were bound together in poetry—awakened the mind and shaped character."
Are we impairing our learning capabilities through technological dependency? Is a Borg-like future awaiting us and does it matter?
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