The Digital Age Is Making Us Physically and Mentally Lazy?

The Digital Age Is Making Us Physically and Mentally Lazy? When presented with a range of statements in the formal essay paper of my English mock exam, one in particular stood out: “The Digital Age is making us physically and mentally lazy.”

It seemed far more interesting than the other standard subjects, sport, politics, national pride, obesity, cyber-bullying, and more sport. None of which I really felt I could write about, yet alone complete a full essay in less than the 30 minutes I had allocated to the article.

Despite the single line scrawled on my planning sheet, my topic really got me thinking. Spending the amount of time I do on the computer, I have pretty strong views on this subject.

The digital age is making us lazy?

Physically; yes, I couldn’t agree more. In years gone past, watching a film would have involved walking to the cinema, but thanks to the technology today, there is almost no need. Why would you, when at the click of a button, the film can be instantly streamed to the viewer’s choice of device? Be it an iPod, laptop, cell-phone, minimal effort is needed.

Also, with the prices and plans of portable cellular telecommunications devices dropping in price, one can be connected with their “bestmate” with a singly thumb-movement. I could be very “old fashioned” and say that in the past, keeping in contact involved physical exertion and walking around to your friends house, but no, one still needed to get up and walk to use the landline telephone in the hallway, before cell-phones rendered them and the effort involved pointless.

As for mentally lazy, I have to disagree. Young people are generally becoming more and more informed, thanks to the power of the internet. In order for this to happen, their brains would need to be engaged. Digital devices make our lives easier, but they do not erase the need to think. While technology solves many problems, it also creates new ones.

Ones that rely on the human element for solutions.

Just because you have the two photos stored on your computer hard drive, along with the editing software, does not mean that no mental effort is needed to successfully merge the two images. The essential element of the human brain is needed for the solution; selecting colours, brushes, layers, filters, and so on. Those skills do not come magically, but instead are something mastered after practice and gaining the relevant skills. Whoever said the digital age was making us lazy?

The digital age is also encouraging young people to question; question their lives, the world, scientific “knowledge”, question the direction of the future. Play computer games and watching television is not simply watching a dot move across a screen anymore. Instead it provides people with opportunities to think –and dream- about more, what is possible.

One of the drawbacks of the digital age may be the physical impacts of becoming lazy, due to the redundancy of exercise, but mentally it is almost the opposite. People now have access to resources and opinions which are changing their lives and the way they think. Extending the way they think.

How could that be making us mentally lazy?

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