One of the common complaints you hear in this modern age is how our electronic devices, like smart phones, are making us more stupid. The other day this happened at a local Subway. My son and I go there every Monday, and like to visit with the nice lady behind the counter. Then last week, in the course of our normal conversation, she remarked, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t remember phone numbers any more. I guess I’m getting stupid.”
This was not the first time I’ve heard someone complain that their smart phone was making them dumb. I’ve seen similar concepts posted on social media for years. Usually they come up in the context of phone numbers, but I’ve also heard it for things like remembering doctor appointments, or getting directions to a new store. People will say things like, “I used to use a map everyday, and now I can’t drive home without my phone.”
I happen to think the opposite, that our smart devices actually make us smarter, not more dumb. The thing is, the reason why they make us smarter is weird enough sounding that it requires a bit of an explanation. And yes, they do make us smarter even as we remember less phone numbers, doctor appointments, and the routes we drive. You are smarter, and I can prove it.
Allow me to explain.
How Your Brain Works (the weird part)
We tend to think of ourselves as being alone, possibly because we each have only one body that we actively control. If you think to run, then your body runs. If I think to put the dishes away, then I do. Nice and simple. It’s like having a controller to a video game, only it’s your self that you are controlling. Others around us may make decisions about their bodies, but those decisions don’t affect ours. Not unless they ask us. Even if we live with others, we still maintain the polite fiction that we alone are in control of ourselves.
In reality, there is no truth to this idea. Humans are never alone. We only exist in the context of other humans. Always. When scientists say we are a social species, most people take that to mean we like to chat with each other or post memes on social media, but our connections run much deeper than that. Our brains didn’t evolve to live alone, even if that is what you are doing now in your expensive little studio apartment in Soho. We evolved to be around other humans, to exist only within a group of others, and this shows up in some surprising ways.
Years ago I remember running across a study where they found that couples, even if they have been dating for just a few weeks, will already have started to distribute their memories. One member of the couple might keep track of things like birthdays and holidays, while the other might remember things like bank balances and when it’s time to take out the trash.
If you spend any time around an older married couple you can see this in action. I must ask my wife twenty times a day where something is located (do we have more mayonnaise?), or if we got paid by a client last week. This is because in our relationship she manages our grocery inventory (though she’d never call it that) and our bank accounts. In return, she might ask me if we have a particular tool in the garage, or if I invoiced a particular client, because I am responsible for tool management and writing invoices. This happens because the knowledge about certain tools, or chores, or bank deposits, or even the contents of our refrigerator, are distributed between us. The fancy term for this is cognitive distribution, meaning we distribute our thinking to others.
While cognitive distribution may be entirely frustrating at times (I don’t know how many times Teri has yelled at me, “Can’t you just look in the refrigerator?”) it’s actually a really smart labor saving device. Both members of the relationship have access to a larger pile of data, but they only have to remember a portion of it. You get all of the benefits of knowing X + Y, but you only have to remember X. And that is super helpful.
The thing is, we naturally do this, without conscious thought. Cognitive distribution is entirely automatic. Why? Because it cuts down on all the things your brain has to manage in your life, making it easier to be yourself. This is one of the many benefits that relationships bring us. They give us more functionality for less effort.
The important point to keep in mind is that cognitive distribution is an inherited skill. It is not something you learned or were taught. Oh, you may get better with it, over time, but you weren’t taught how to use it to begin with. It’s not like reading or writing. No one showed us how to share our memories in kindergarten, we just did it. This means the trick of cognitive distribution is wired deep into our brains.
And this cognitive distribution hack is not just for married couples either. We do the same thing with anybody we regularly spend time with. You’ll find cognitive distribution relationships in the office, you’ll see them in sports teams, or book clubs, or in rock bands. You’ll not only witness cognitive distribution among close friends, but you’ll find it in your relationships with your pets1. We even create cognitive distribution relationships with non-living objects, like post-it notes and calendars. And don’t even try to get between me and my grill when it’s time to cook supper. Daddy is workin, and you best get out of the way.
In short, when it comes to relationships, humans are messy. We’re happy to dump our problems on everyone and everything around us. We will form a bond with anything even remotely capable of being in a relationship, be it a fellow human, a dog, or even a pencil and a piece of paper. We’re happy to lean on anything to help distribute the load. And that’s kind of weird.
So if we already are automatically distributing our memories in every other relationship we maintain, then why not do the same with our phones? After all, smart phones really are better at remembering phone numbers than we are. They’re also much better at giving directions2. As for doctor appointments and business meetings, before the invention of smart phones there used to be these primitive memory devices called appointment books and calendars3. They worked (after a fashion) but only if you remembered to look at them every day. Forget to look (or write down the wrong time, as I once memorably did) and your appointments would be toast.
“But wait,” you might ask. “How can I be in a relationship with my phone? It’s not even alive.”
Really? You’re NOT in a relationship? Let me ask you, who takes care of your phone? Who makes sure it’s been fed enough electricity so it can function? Who keeps it swaddled in a protective case, or protects it from falling? Who makes sure it’s regularly backed up? Who cleans that nasty screen? (ick!) Who remembers to pick it up and carry it everywhere with them?
That sounds an awful lot like a relationship to me.4
And what does your phone give you in exchange for all of your care and attention? Why it remembers your phone numbers; it remembers your appointments; it safely tells you how to get to a place you’ve never visited before; and most importantly, it keeps you in constant contact with every other relationship in your life.
Far from being stupid, that sounds like a really good deal to me. A spectacular trade off. Win-win.
To Recap:
Because you come for a species that evolved cognitive distribution skills, and
Because you are going to naturally distribute your memories anyway, and
Because smart phones are relatively easy to take care of, therefore
Trading the knowledge of phone numbers, for all the other benefits that you receive from your smart phone, makes your relationship with it a really good deal.5
And that’s why you are smarter. For one simple relationship, you receive a heck of a lot more functionality. Even on its worst day your smart phone is better for you than that hot mess you used to date. And that sounds pretty smart to me.
- Don’t believe me? The next time little fluffy annoys you because it’s time for their dinner, remember that this is a skill you encouraged in them so you didn’t have to always look at the clock to remember to feed them. They now do the work of reminding you for you. ↩︎
- Ask anyone who lived in a big city before smartphones, and they will happily explain how much easier it is to ask your phone, rather than look something up on a giant map. To get around in L.A. you needed this giant book called a Thomas Brothers Map, and you would flip through it from page to page as you drove. Endless opportunities for accidents there. ↩︎
- Spend a quiet moment searching for day planners (they still make them for boomers) then weep for all the trees lost to their construction. ↩︎
- Half the latch-key kids I knew growing up would have killed for that kind of care from their parents. ↩︎
- Donald J. Trump would approve. 😉 ↩︎