MOST OF US remember what life was like before smartphones, high-speed fiber, and on-demand television.
At the same time, we’re also tech-savvy and Google smart. We were there for the birth and boom of social media, the rise of e-commerce – and the fall of the tickey box.
We have navigated life both with and without the internet, before robots and virtual reality went from fun fantasy to matter of fact.
Our children, on the other hand, will never know what it’s like to wait patiently for their favorite TV show to air once a week.
They’ll always be able to delete a selfie they don’t like. Social media will forever remind them when someone is celebrating a birthday and, as long as they have an internet connection, they’ll never need a map book to find their way home.
Sceptics worry that the digital age will have a negative impact on the base intelligence of the next generation – our children’s generation. Should we be worried? Are our children getting dumber, or should we view this as an inevitable consequence of evolution?
“It’s a bit of both,” says author and human potential expert Nikki Bush.
She highlights that, while technology has made the human race infinitely more effective, efficient and able to do things faster, quicker and easier, in many ways, it’s stopped us from using our brains the way we have in the past.
“Many of us today use Waze or similar navigation applications. These apps are amazing. Not only are they digital maps but also crowd-sourced pieces of artificial intelligence that help us enormously.
But, if you’re a child or even an adult, and you don’t know how to find your way around town, you’re not creating the neurological pathway in your brain to develop a sense of direction, because you’ve never had to,” Nikki says.
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