Anything You Can Do, It Can Do Better: Technology and Your Brain

Technology is ubiquitous, and that may be the most painstakingly incontestable statement that you’ll read today. No matter what it is you want to get done, “there’s an app for that.” Google has become a verb, replacing the words “search for,” and in turn we have become increasingly impatient when it takes more than 0.06 seconds to retrieve search results. Online shopping is omnipresent; people are tending toward filling virtual carts than physical ones. Our lives get continually easier as our gadgets become more extensive.

With this newfound reliance on quick and convenient technology, psychologists and cultural anthropologists have gone crazy trying to figure out what exactly this means for the human race. Some argue that we’re becoming dumber, lazier, and attention deficit. With the incorporation of hyperlinks within websites, journalist Nicholas Carr in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” notes we can’t focus on the topic at hand, and the overabundance of information means that we get watered down versions of everything instead of in-depth versions of one or two concepts. Even something as simple as an automatic shutoff on a coffee maker absolves us from the necessity of actively preventing our kitchen from burning down. It probably half-began with the remote control, and from then on, we just assumed we should have a button for everything. No thought. No action. Just request.

There are many others who argue against this point. In a direct rebuttal to Carr’s article, Awl contributor Maria Bustillos mentions that hyperlinks are akin to scholarly footnotes and with so much access to novel information, we are actually exercising our brain rather than pigeon-holing it. Having more at our fingertips in turn makes us eager to receive more, the one time the feeling of entitlement may not be detrimental to this new era. The more we see computers and even phones can do, the more we want to see what we can program them to do. We are essentially testing the limits of human capability by making technology work for us in any way possible. And until it gets sentient a la Terminator, our technology will continue to docilely challenge us as we challenge it in return.

The loaded question is: so what does this actually mean for us? 2001: A Space Odyssey may have gotten it wrong as far as how far we’d be by the millennium, but HAL wasn’t too far of a cry from what we expect our technology to be capable of. With an “anything you can do, a computer can do better” attitude, where does that place the human mind? And what does this mean for your organization?

We here at Monar are big fans of Daniel Pink, so who better to pull from for the answer to today’s query? In his novel A Whole New Mind, Pink mentions that our lives are getting “clipped” by automation. What does this mean? Essentially, anything that a human can accomplish involving “rule based logic, calculations, and sequential thinking,” a computer can do better, because it can accomplish the same tasks without emotion or fatigue. The book cites chess master Garry Kasparov’s sad defeat by computer to demonstrate that even the best logical minds can be outsmarted by a machine that has the same capabilities. Routine functions are being completed by the CPU instead of the CPA. It seems as though people in the workplace are quickly becoming obsolete…at least the ones who are dominantly left-brain workers.

Pink argues that this among other factors are forcing professionals to turn their attention toward “R-Directed Thinking,” or more lateral, creative, right-brain focused methods of thought. People are being forced to adopt skills and thought processes that a computer, in a Daft Punk-inspired manner, can’t do harder, better, faster, or cheaper. Corporations are turning to people who have masters in fine arts rather than masters in business administration. Emotional intelligence is being valued over intelligence quotients. These are all leading to what Pink classifies as the Conceptual Age, an era in which abilities must extend beyond scholastic aptitude. Faced with the prospect of becoming passé, we have to begin to exercise our creative minds.

The Internet may be making us stupider. Our cell phones might be calculating restaurant tips faster and more effectively than we can. But we have the advantage of a right brain, something Steve Jobs has yet to implant into a microchip. As long as we have that, we will always be one step ahead.

Metaphorically, at least. I’m pretty sure they’ve made a robot that can run faster than I can.

To our readers: how do you believe the increased reliance on technology has affected our minds?