The other day, based on my recent thoughts, an over-the-top platform suggested a web series for me called “How to get away with murder”. I immediately turned to my trusted advisor, Internet Search, to read reviews about the series. As soon as I started typing the title of the series, the search engine immediately gave me a list of options to select from: “how to get pregnant”, “how to get a period immediately”, “how to get a COVID-19 vaccination certificate” And soon. I was attracted to the third choice as I was yet to get the certificate.
After several minutes of searching and clicking on several tabs on COVID certificates, hyperlinks on state epidemic control measures, pictures on statistics on upcoming COVID waves, the obligatory WHO website and several conspiracy theories about COVID, I realized that I He had forgotten his primary intention of searching. It was like going through a convoy of many floats but not being able to focus on any one. It’s the same experience you get on an organized tour in which you get a glimpse of everything, but absolutely nothing about anything.
Has the Internet made us less intelligent? It is possible, because it hinders our thinking process. The Internet indicates and suggests many things, but blinds us with its offerings. Even before we think, it shows us many options to choose from. Often these options are popular, or chosen based on our previous searches. Our past selections are usually our favourites, which have us following the trails like rats after pied piper. Even if we stick to watching one, the nefarious “auto-play” feature automatically plays the next video before we even recognize it. Or the next episode of the web series plays in a few seconds even before we come out of our trance. As if a master chef is sending us our favorite dishes one after the other.
The artificial intelligence of video channels, search engines, social media and OTT does not allow us to think. After a time, like a mind master, it decides what we need and what we want to see. Political affiliations, communal hatred, regional and religious bias, fan base and racial prejudices are often promoted through these artificial intelligence networks on social media, leading to outrage and polarization.
Another feature of the Internet that can hinder our intellectual development is its plethora of information. This is really a contradiction. While the Internet provides a vast storehouse of information for building our knowledge, I believe that our intelligence is increasingly limited to what we can find on our smartphones at that particular moment. The Internet is full of information spoons but do we absorb all the information? It is similar to finding the address of a particular place. Earlier we used to make a map in our mind and find the way through many paths. Now, smart-maps have made us geographically challenging. We no longer bother to remember the directions to a particular place. We do what the app tutors us to do. Now, without the app, many of us feel lost and handicapped.
Knowledge is the accumulation of information and, the intellect is using this knowledge effectively. The brain retains knowledge acquired by the linking of neuronal pathways, which are strengthened by associating different information. The more relevant and more repeated an information is, the more tightly wired it becomes in our brain, allowing us to remember the information and use them at the appropriate time. But now we hardly deal with such challenges to our brain, and we are becoming more and more dependent on technology for simple things. Remember the days when we used to remember the phone numbers of at least 10 members of our family. Now if one can know the phone number of the spouse, then it is an achievement. Simple mathematical operations have been removed from our routines, and elegantly replaced by smartphone calculators. How many birthdays do we remember of our loved ones now? The joy we get from eagerly waiting for that day and wishing them at 12 o’clock is incomparable. Now we’re driven by calendar apps and social media reminders, and wishing a friend a happy birthday has become mechanical.
How much do we let our brains multi-task? The people of the older generation must be doing various tasks in their mind while doing a task. But now we keep a “to-do” list app, multiple alarms, email reminders, periodic pop-offs, automatic payments, and so on for everything, while keeping the brain idle. Writing a good email or article is no longer intuitive and thoughtful, but inspired by the suggestions of an AI-powered email app. The in-built dictionary “auto-corrects” our mistakes and we hardly think about the grammatical or spelling corrections we make. Our intellectual development has stalled, perfecting the artificial intelligence of our smartphones.
The greatest strength of man that allowed us to develop much faster than other animals is the brain. It is a supercomputer that has the unique ability to take in, assimilate, correlate, retain and convey information. Recently, the work of the brain has been gradually replaced by the Internet and smartphones. They have become like our external brain – a hard drive with information at hand. The Internet “knows” much more about us than we know about ourselves based on our search history and views on social media. It knows our likes and dislikes and feeds us more of our “likes,” blinking us the other way. It does not allow us to think, think and act. I am afraid that we are losing our wisdom and knowledge to the internet. In the past two decades, the Internet has given a great impetus to human communication and technological development in every sphere of our lives. But like every other technological innovation, we need to understand the pitfalls of the Internet before our minds make it redundant.