Is tech making us dumb?

According to a recent research  young people today have worst memory than their parents. Additionally we also have very high levels of forgetfulness which is caused by our high reliance on the Internet.
Nowadays many people see Google as their primary source for information and an addition to their intelligence. This comes as no surprise as we are constantly using our smartphones, tablets etc. more and more on the go as a source of knowledge which prevents us from using our brains.
Imagine the scenario you are on a date and you have a debate over Labour’s position on the education reform. Even if you don’t have a clue who is the education secretary this is nothing to worry about. Google is here to save the day.

Step 1: Excuse yourself to the bathroom. Step 2: Take your smartphone out and run a very quick check on Labour’s position on the education reform. Step 3: Return to the table and show how much smarter you are once your bladder is empty.  Step 4: Change the topic and hope there won’t be any more ‘inappropriate’ questions as your date may end up thinking you have a urinary tract infection and attempt to take you to the hospital. Which will probaly ruin the date.
There is no doubt about our dependence on the Internet. It is a massive part of our generation and for the future ones. What is unfortunate is that the new era of information technology is making us less creative and more muddled.  It has put into place a permanent change in the way our brain maps information, how it retains it, which parts are used how and even the size of the brain is going through a metamorphosis.

Life has become more complex but we hardly ever notice it because technology has made complexity simpler than ever. According to a Harvard researcher “Using Google gives people the sense that the internet has become part of their own cognitive tool set”.
What exactly is going on here? Wasn’t technology, the Net, Google and all other tools supposed to make us smarter?
We are not becoming more stupid. Technology isn’t the villain here. Innovation and creativity won’t die a brutal death. We are just evolving as human beings, we always have. For years, the human brain and the way it functions has remained almost the same. The human brain today is very different from the time man was a hunter-gatherer, but for many years since civilisation it has stagnated.
The truth of the matter is that technology and the information highway is the greatest gift to mankind, nonetheless we should not rely on the internet for everything and must try and use our brains every once in a while.