When I started reading “The Future of Well-Being in a Tech-Saturated World,” The first thing that grabbed my attention was “Digital Deficits.” It gives the definition of “People’s cognitive capabilities will be challenged in multiple ways, including their capacity for analytical thinking, memory, focus, creativity, reflection and mental resilience.” I have personally struggled with memory and focus for about as long as I can remember. I also have had my own personal device or at least access to either a computer or phone for as long as I can remember.
I have always blamed a number of different factors for my terrible memory, and a screen has definitely been a blame I’ve had for a while. I always thought the issue was more or a convenience issue where in the back of my mind I’ve always had the thought, “why do I need to remember this when it’s saved to my phone.” And I think this normally when it comes to things like phone numbers, birthdays, and the biggest for me has been math equations and always having a calculator.
In the “Concerns over Harm” section, Nicholas Carr talks about studies that have been done about Digital Deficits. And while they do of course talk about different ways screens have been challenging people there were different reasons than I was thinking before I finished reading about his study. He brought up good points about contextual thinking, conversational depth, and lastly an increase in anxiety. Conversational depth had not even come across my mind once. Some of us have been communicating with some of our current friends and schoolmates the same amount of time if not longer than we have actually seen them in person or in classes.
I have been struggling with a way to fix this for a while. Of course nobody wants to have a terrible memory, but it’s also hard to get rid of that back of the mind thinking “why do I need to remember this, I can just find it online or save it to my phone.” And this is a common thought that as time goes on I think it will just keep affecting more and more people. I feel like since the start of Covid more people got this mindset when it came to having the internet more available while doing online classes.
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