As Smart Phones Get Smarter, Humans get Stupider
When’s the last time you wrote something with pen and paper?
My handwriting is appalling and after a few lines my fingers ache.
The reason for that is because of how infrequently I need to actually write with pen and paper.
Like most other people, I’m more likely to type than write.
But with the convenience and prevalence of technology come some problems that aren’t immediately apparent.
Auto-Correct
I’m willing to admit I can’t spell “disappointed” or “necessarily” without auto-correct.
But because of auto-correct I’m never going to have to learn.
I just type some approximation of the word and iOS or Windows automatically corrects it every time.
When it comes to writing these words with pen and paper I’m neccasarily dissapointed with the results.
Text Expansion
The iPhone 4S has a neat feature called Text Expansion.
Essentially you program it so that it knows that when you type BRB, you mean “Be right back” and it’ll replace the text accordingly.
So it’ll convert a teens txt-speak into proper English – but only if they’re on their iOS device.
When typing from anywhere else their text is going to be increasingly littered with impenetrable acronyms.
Siri
Siri is the powerful voice-activated assistant that comes with the iPhone 4S. I’ve not used it yet, but from the reports I’m seeing Siri looks great.
It can deal with a wide variety of requests – sending messages, scheduling meetings, placing phone calls and even answering questions, all without having to touch a key.
Increasingly we’ll have to now type less and less or figure things our for ourselves.
So the future is one where we won’t even need to type.
When we continually improve on technology there are consequences of the marvels we invent.
There is a real danger that what seems a positive, labour-saving feature may end up backfiring and we as humans will regress instead of advance.
Those who will be most affected are those that are growing up in this digital age
Won’t somebody please think of the children?!?!!