Did Pencils Make Us Dumber?
from the moral-panics-through-the-ages dept
We've talked about the popularity of moral panics for any new kind of technology, and shown how various reports of new technologies somehow being "bad" are almost always unfounded and over exaggerated. Claims of pretty much every modern technology somehow making us dumber are almost never supported by the facts, but still, you get people just trying to drum up book sales telling us that Google makes us dumber by encouraging people not to read as much -- when actual evidence shows people are reading more long-form works.It appears there's a recent book out, A Better Pencil, by Dennis Baron, that explores how these same fears and totally unsubstantiated moral panics seem to have come about with pretty much every new communications platform out there. Baron recently did an interview with Salon, where he pointed out that these same sorts of fears go back all the way to Plato:
I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony.So, forgive me for being skeptical about each new fear about each new communications technology that comes about. For all the cries of "but this time, it's different," it's the same exact story we've seen pretty much throughout history. The technology makes it easier to communicate, and those who benefited from the older restrictions get most afraid of what the new technologies allow. Often, it just seems to be a fear that there will be more competition and more innovation, and the old-timers are afraid they're not equipped or able to keep up.
We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation. There were complaints about typewriters making writing too mechanical, too distant -- it disconnects the author from the words. That a pen and pencil connects you more directly with the page. And then with the computer, you have the whole range of "this is going to revolutionize everything" versus "this is going to destroy everything."
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Filed Under: a better pencil, dennis baron, innovation, moral panics, pencils, writing
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Did Pencils Make Us Dumber
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/s
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Re:
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yes!
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On The Bright Side
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As far as plato...
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Skepticism is my favorite
Never any need to ask forgiveness for skepticism. Where would analytical thinking be with out it?
-and Kevin is right about Plato. His students wrote it down
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Re: Skepticism is my favorite
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Maybe they are making us dyumber
That was Socrates.
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Re: Maybe they are making us dyumber
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This makes it sound like a purely capitalistic model. I think it's more psychological. If it were just about profit, the people who were in control of the old technology would be in the best position to see when their replacement was invented and to jump on the bandwagon. This would be the capitalistic model. But this doesn't happen because people simply like what they know in spite of whether something they don't know could make them more money.
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New technologies win in spite of those objections because they are ENABLING technologies. E.g. people will carry on ripping CDs (they own) onto mp3 players (they own) because it's better. The CD producers will carry on whinging, but as Canute showed - just telling the tide to go back will never work.
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not exactly ...dumber
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Re: not exactly ...dumber
As technology advances, so, too, does the basic understanding of technology in general, and therefore the general intellect of the populous is furthered rather than hindered. Technology only becomes truly obsolete if the new technology completely eliminates the need for the old. Example: wooden graphite pencils. Even in this age of computers, we still use them. Why? Because they have their place; even stone engraving has its place still, but it's a specialized niche (gravestones, buildings, etc.).
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Cellphones, though do make us dumber
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Re: Cellphones, though do make us dumber
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I can attest to that, most definitely.
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Though I feel a bit disturbed that I was able to read it as easily as proper English.
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Yes. Lack of knowledge does make one dumber.
Its often better to know that something is, then to have the ability to arrive at that understanding independently.
For example, I'd rather my child KNOW that if they touch something hot they will get burned then have the ABILITY to understand thermodynamics.
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Re: Yes. Lack of knowledge does make one dumber.
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Re: Yes. Lack of knowledge does make one dumber.
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What it REALLY is....
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Plato was partially right... but one should not fear new communication technologies
(I might find again scholar references to these claims whenever I pass by home country.)
So yes, the pencil made us "lose" part of the abilities that it superseded, but the fear is pointless, because it juste gave us the opportunity to allocate our memory to different activities.
(To avoid misunderstanding: I totally agree with Michael Masnik's conclusions.)
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An addendum to Jerome
That being said, rote memorization is virtually extinct, which had its uses. I cannot simply recall the structures of various biological molecules, but I most certainly can rotate that structure in my mind, and imagine the interactions of surface protrusions with its environment...
With the information easily available, the question really becomes a matter of debate: what's the best use of an individual's brain capacity?
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Pencils, etc.
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Pencils
New and improved pencils add to our capabilities.
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Not only was Plato wrong
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duh
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