Economía digital en Inglés: Are smartphones making us lazy thinkers too?

With the emergence of smartphones, there has long been a debate about whether or not they are slowly making the general population less intelligent. That is to say, instead of sitting down and actually solving a problem, people are relying on Google to solve these problems for them. According to today.com, a new study from the University of Waterloo in Canada has shown that there is indeed a connection between a heavy reliance on smartphones and not thinking too deeply on how to solve problems.

Now, it is not necessarily directly saying that smartphones make us lazy thinkers, but that there is a connection. The study says that some people are intuitive thinkers, and this means that they rely on instinct instead of analysis when solving problems. These types of people are more likely to rely on their smartphones for a quick solution instead of analyzing the problem.

However, the researchers behind the study stress that this study is only the first step in truly analyzing what smartphones are doing to the brain. Some researchers believe that smartphones do broaden the amount of knowledge that is available to us, but in turn will compromise our long term memory storage. This basically means that because we can look anything up with the touch of a few buttons, we will start to remember less and less. Now, this idea does have some merit, as researchers are already starting to see people going immediately to their phones when they cannot remember something.

Basically, this area still does not have enough research to draw any definite conclusions from, but it is still something of which to be wary. In this world of constant multi-tasking and having a world of information at your fingertips, there is something to be said of depending too much on this giant information base.