Today, we live in an era of technology and are now more wired than ever. Positive aspects include greater access to information, increased efficiency of certain tasks (word processing, email, texting), more safety and convenience (smart phones, TVs and cameras), but the loss of  intellectual curiosity is a worrisome concern and may be a price too high to pay.

At what point, or with what new gadget, will we completely lose our ability to think for ourselves? And what is lost when we don’t exercise our brains?

My worry is that technology is facilitating intellectual laziness, which may lead to a generation of people who lack self-reliance and a dumber culture overall. The biggest downside of technology may turn out to be the inability to solve problems on our own or to have intimate, personal experiences.

The convenience and accessibility of the Internet is the main source of the problem. I attend school with students who have never read an entire book. Instead of sitting with a complicated piece of fiction and struggling to tease meaning from the prose, they turn instead to Spark Notes for summaries of main characters, plotlines and themes. For many lazy students, Spark Notes provides the information they need to pull together an assignment and receive a passing grade. No thought is given to the hard-earned benefits of conquering the difficult process or to the richness and pleasure and power of words than can make you laugh, or cry, or think.

Sure Spark Notes can make Shakespeare or a complex novel like Great Expectations easier to understand, but how dull is it to go through life without being moved by the actual words. Reading deep, well written passages repeatedly–while contemplating the meaning–can give the reader valuable insight into herself. Sparks Notes cannot do that.

This may be stating the obvious, but engaging often in well-written books is also the best way to strengthen the reader’s ability to write well. What if my generation doesn’t contribute any significant writing? I worry that this is another realistic possibility.

Reflection, introspection and thinking for yourself. That makes us smarter. And that’s what cultivates the uncommon or remarkable experience.