Dain Bramage: Thoreau’s Railroad and My Alexa

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thoreau

I’m getting ready to discuss Transcendentalism with my students, and I always ask them to discuss and ponder this quote, to write about what it means to them.  Most of the ideals of transcendentalism don’t excite my inner drummer all that much.  I like luxury and convenience.  I don’t need to suck the marrow out of ANYTHING except eat it already melted on my popcorn at Max’s wine dive.  (Yes, this is a real thing, and sooooooooo good!)

I do, however, think about this quote a whole lot.  It takes my students a long time to understand Thoreau’s point, but I’ll just go ahead and tell you.  What he means is that we depend so much on technology that it’s no longer a tool that is in our control; we’re so dependent on it, it actually controls us.

Think about it.  How do you feel when the electricity goes out in your house?  How many times do you try to turn on the restroom light?  Do you plug your phone in so it doesn’t lose its charge forgetting there’s no power?  Or do you freak out completely and make sure you have a car charger handy because what if you have no phone?

I think it’s gone beyond that…

It’s interesting what our brains do to make sense of the world around us.  Have you seen the video where someone’s hand is pet with a feather at the same time a fake hand is pet.  The person is watching the fake hand pet.  Then, the fake hand is suddenly stabbed and people jerk their hands back as though they were being stabbed?

Or this optical illusion that makes your brain a little crazy trying to figure out what’s going on with that dog’s face!

dog

Our brains are adapting and changing based on input all the time….

I really think it would be interesting if someone who is into neuroscience did research on the effect of having information so readily available is on the human brain.

 

 
What were Chandler’s parents’ names on Friends? How long does it take you before to decide you HAVE to know the answer and Google it? Will you remember it when you found it so easily?


I find that sometimes my brain races “the Google.” As soon as I begin to type the question in, it knows the answer…

but now it’s even easier. “Alexa: What were Chandler’s parents’ names on Friends?” (I did ask her, she said “Hmmmm… I don’t know that,”  but after I asked her a few more questions and got to it.)


chandler's parents
What is this doing to our long term memory? When our brains know that they don’t need to remember anything anymore, do they adapt?
 

I know that I have gone to pick up our CSA vegetables about 4 or 5 times. Every time I go, I program the address in my Navigation in my car. I have a VAGUE idea of where it is, but I’m generally listening to an audiobook when I’m on my way there… paying little attention to anything except the “bing” from my car as it tells me to turn.  I know that I couldn’t get there without looking up the directions each time.    That wasn’t the case before I had turn by turn navigation.  I could go someplace one time, and then I knew where it was in the future. My brain knew it was easier to just remember than to have to read the directions each time.

Phone numbers?  How many of them do you know?  I used to have a phone book of them in my brain when I was a kid.  Now?  I know mine–sometimes.

I wonder what the effect will be long term.  Computers keep getting smarter and smarter.  We rely on them more and more.  Does this mean that our brains are going to continue to adapt, and we’ll get dumber and dumber?

Have you looked up the names of Chandler’s parents, yet?

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