I love technology. My whole life, I've enjoyed working with gadgets: machines, electronics, computers. I started programming in the mid 70's, and never looked back. I love writing code to perform interesting calculations, or simulate complex systems, or control the behavior of other systems. I owned a Motorola Droid (Android 2.0!) in 2009 and loved showing it off to anyone I could. I teach engineering and computer science. I've invented and patented multiple inventions, including violin bows that light up and respond to motion as one plays their instrument. In school, I spent countless hours with friends discussing the ins and outs of artificial intelligence, artificial consciousness, self-awareness, and what they might mean for computer science. In the early 80s, I carried a copy of GEB with me like it was a sacred text.
I love technology. I also love food; but there are many foods I eat in moderation (cheese and sweets, for example), and some that I avoid completely (meat and alcohol, for example). Technology is the same for me. I've long enjoyed Google, especially when most people weren't familiar with it, and someone would ask some obscure question, and I'd show them pages of information about it. I enjoyed being able to find answers to things I had long wondered about.
We've all had the experience of just starting on a page and following links; clicking from page to page, going down tangent after tangent, learning new things as minutes turn into hours. That's a lot of fun (if you have the time!). I used to do this looking up words in a dictionary, or topics in an encyclopedia, or browsing the stacks in a library.
WHAT CHANGED?
Then one day, I realized things had changed. I was no longer going to Google just to answer questions I didn't know the answer to. I was using Google in place of thinking. I was working on math problems (I was studying non-commutative ring theory for fun), and didn't understand part of a proof, and was Googling to help me understand. And I said to myself: "I do this a lot lately." In the past, if I didn't understand part of a proof, I would re-read it, think about it more, and if I still didn't get it, I might try examining a specific, simple example of the statement. If I still didn't get it, I would go back and re-read the prior material to see what I had missed. Finally, if all else failed, I would browse the stacks at the library (QA 510.xxx for those who remember how book spines were labeled!), find a related text, start reading that, and often wind up on a new path, learning new things, which would eventually help with my original question. But now, I was just going to math.stackexchange.com (for example) and hoping someone would explain things to me.
If you're in a rush, that's a great tool...but for me, when I was trying to learn things for the sake of learning, this was short-circuiting the process. And I began to notice I was doing this more and more. When using a piece of software, if I wanted to do something, I used to explore the menus, try different things, and hopefully figure out the answer, but in the process I would learn more about the software, I would begin to understand the mindset behind its organization, and my comfort and proficiency would grow accordingly. But at some point, I started just Googling for answers, which left most of the underlying system a mystery to me.
WHAT THIS MEANS TO ME
So as I started thinking about these things, and as I started watching myself and how I was using these tools, I realized I was replacing a lot of things I used to work at with simply asking machines to do things for me. Again, in some cases (like if I'm in a big hurry), this makes sense to me; but on a day-to-day basis, it felt like I was missing out on some of the purpose of being alive, which, to me, is to grow, to face and overcome challenges, to learn more and become better at acquiring and applying knowledge. For me, those are things I greatly enjoy, and I had largely removed them from my life.
The effects of this can be subtle. For example, when I’m trying to solve a problem, formulate an argument, or work through something in my head, I do so in sentences and paragraphs. Weighing options, debating pros and cons, clarifying arguments...these processes use my verbal skills (even if I’m not speaking out-loud). If those skills diminish, so does my ability to problem solve.
SCOPE
I’m not unplugging my computer, I’m not ditching my tablet or smartphone. I am, however, trying to be more mindful of how I use assistive technologies, how much I rely on them, and in particular, how much I use them in lieu of working things out myself. If I’m in a rush, I may look something up in a search engine; if I’m not, I may save my searches, and do them in a bunch later. Things I do for fun – coding, writing, music composition, working on math problems, research – these I will tend to do in ways that keep me very involved in the process. You can find some specific examples here.