Our brains are turning to mush. Not, hey it’s the weekend and I’m on my 15th beer mush but the bad kind of mush; the kind of mush that causes dementia and other brain disorders. We are losing our memories and our ability to write in long-hand. Face it people we have become the laziest bunch of humans I have ever seen and it is our fault.
Our lives have become a constant whirl of electronic backwash. Computers, tablets, GPS and smart phones, all of it is designed to make our lives easier, us lazier and somewhat dumber. I have begun to realize that I personally need to take some time away from all those electronics from time to time. If I don’t I’m going to become one of the tech zombies that we all see on the streets texting instead of watching where they are going, hooking into the grid instead of hooking up with other humans…it’s all rather disturbing.
On the one hand, they are great tools but, on the other, we are losing some of our mental capacity by becoming dependent on all those gadgets. Consider that we are now currently raising an entire generation who will not know how to read a map or remember a phone number. In a few short years no one will need to know how to spell, computers already pretty much do that for you. And handwriting? Won’t matter if yours is good or bad…no one needs to do that anymore.
I recently went back to using a handwritten journal. I am also buying actual books instead of just ebooks. And once a week I spend a whole day without (gasp) turning on my computer at all. Don’t tell anyone but I spend those days actually reading….
Don’t let technology turn your brain into mush. If I was a conspiracy theorists (and some days I can be) I would tell you that it feels like we are being trained to literally not think for ourselves. Computers do our work, GPS finds our way, smartphones make our calls and television (media) tells us what is real. Wake up people….wake up before you find yourself in the land of I-can’t-do-for-myself.
We as creative people have a moral obligation to make sure that others around us know that, although technology is good for the most part, there is a dark side. Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” comes to mind. It is simple…the brain is like a muscle and if like a muscle you have to use it or it will just stop working. Turn off the computer and read, turn off the GPS and get lost, turn off the smart phone and enjoy the quiet….when you do quiet the buzz of today’s technology you may just discover something you haven’t seen in a while…your sanity.
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