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Picture Credit: Jamie Bernhardt
A picture I made in Art Studio for ipad. |
Thinking for oneself has been a value important to
Westerners since the Age of Enlightenment, but the wide consumption or “consumerization”
of mobile and web-based information technologies in the past two decades have
prompted some to question whether our devices help us or hinder us from
thinking for ourselves. One stance is that the ability of humans who live
during or after this proliferation of mobile information technologies to think
for themselves will deteriorate, if it already has not. To an extent, I agree
with this stance, but I think it is important that we characterize this extent
in terms of the skills or abilities used to think for oneself.
The term ‘thinking for oneself ‘can specifically mean using
cognitive or mental abilities to justify one’s beliefs or belief systems. In a
broader sense, it can also mean using one’s cognitive abilities (e.g. attention
resources, working memories, long-term memory, or critical thinking) to
understand something in ways that enable that person to perform important
mental procedures or tasks based on that understanding. For example, using
one’s attention, memory resources, and critical thinking skills to construct a
mental model about something can enable one to pose a question about something
one does not know and use one’s abilities to try to answer that question, not
simply justify one’s beliefs. This second sense is what I take this discussion
to concern.
If using these information technologies can deteriorate the
ability to think for oneself in any ways, the deterioration would involve the
following: (a) lack of using the mental abilities that are essential to or
necessary for thinking for oneself; and (b) deterioration (the reverse of a
development) of those abilities. However, we should note that a decline in
activity or use of something does not necessarily entail a deterioration of
that thing’s elements or parts. To defend the claim that using contemporary
information technologies at the scale at which many use them has or will deteriorate
the ability to think for oneself, proponents need to show that (i) such usage
essentially involves deterioration of the abilities required to think for
oneself or (ii) that such usage could lead to the deterioration of the
abilities required to be able to think for yourself.
Using web-based technologies like search engines (e.g.
Google) that let you search for information about what you are looking for has
become important to the daily, business and academic lives of Westerners. If
they have a question and a (mobile) information technology device, they can type
in a keyword, click “search,” and then use their mental abilities to skim or
peruse through information about that topic or question. People have had to get better at recognizing
the type of resource they are looking for as many different types of
informational and multimedia resources with different elements of credibility
are available on the World Wide Web, our number one way of consuming
information. Consuming information, in and of itself, does not involve a lack
of using the skills essential to or necessary for thinking for oneself, nor
does it involve a deterioration of these skills. Consuming information involves
seeing, reading, and using one’s attention, memory resources, critical thinking
abilities, and other mental abilities to understand, build mental
representations, and integrate these with prior knowledge.
However, using technologies to consume this information does
not necessarily involve critical, thoughtful use of our mental abilities at
high levels of information processing. People who use information technologies
and web-based technologies to search for information are thinking for
themselves by figuring out what they are looking for, pinpointing a solution
(e.g. using Google in such-and-such way to find a some kind of resource), and
consuming the information inherent in the resource. But their ability to think critically for themselves may diminish as they search more than
they process information at high levels of using mental abilities. This is
because they may not use their abilities, the same ones required for thinking
for oneself, at the level of use that is necessary for thinking critically for oneself.
If people are not using their abilities at such-and-such high level of
use, then, though their abilities do not deteriorate, their capacities to use
these abilities at certain levels of use (e.g. using an ability or group of
abilities to accomplish a finite set of tasks by some time or within a specific
duration) may wither despite their history of being capable of doing so in the
past. This is the relevant sense of “diminish” here.
It is my suspicion that what proponents want to argue at a
bare minimum is that relying on information technologies, not simply using
them, will stop people from thinking for themselves at a certain level of use
of the abilities required to think for themselves. Still, using technologies
does not necessarily entail a lack of performance at a certain level. An
individual’s ability to perform complex tasks such as keeping up a certain
level of thinking for oneself while using or relying on an information
technology hinges on that individual’s particularities. Technologies do not
obviate the need to think for ourselves, but they can obviate the need to think
critically for ourselves if we let them. They improve access to information,
the stuff we think about, for ourselves, but if there are some who are not
capable of using their mental abilities to support a certain level of
information processing while interacting with technologies, then relying heavily
(often) on technologies for them may mean a decrease in the capacity to think
critically (i.e. at high levels) for oneself, not just a decrease in activity.
This does not spell a doom impervious to people who want to
use technologies, think at high levels of cognition for themselves, and improve
their mental abilities. Those who use technology primarily for mere entertainment
rather than
human application, which involves entertainment and the intent to
improve something (e.g. one’s own learning abilities), may not always be able
to think for themselves at certain levels of cognition. However, those who
engage human application of technologies to improve their own learning
abilities, not simply their own access to information or the amount of
information stored in the memory within their own minds, can maintain a certain
level of thinking for oneself or reach higher levels of thinking for oneself.
We must remember that thinking for oneself , no matter what one is interacting
with, takes place within oneself, and it can be heightened only by improving
the abilities necessary to think for oneself.
