Are Smart phones making us mentally lazy?

I am not sure how many people this applies to, but a group of us were sitting round the dinner table one evening when I noticed all these smart phones on the table. While it might be a social gaffe to answer a phone during a meal in some countries, in Asia it's the norm to put your cell phone on the table while having a meal or while out having a coffee in a cafe. Noticing all these devices, (actually I noticed the lady beside me was gorgeous before I noticed anything else) I asked her for her number, her response was interesting, she instead asked for my number and offered to give me a missed call.

My curiosity being aroused I asked her why she did not just give me her number, hilariously enough, she replied that she did not remember it, after our peculiar way of exchanging contact information I took a little walk down memory lane and reminisced about the good old days when you would ask a girl for her number and she would write it down on a piece of paper for you, or depending on how much you both had to drink maybe even have offered to write it down on a part of your body. Usually your hand (get your mind out of the gutter folks). Now it is a case of let me punch it in to your phone or the weirdly wonderful "missed call" to save a number method.

I realized that with cell phones getting smarter many of us have gotten mentally lazy. Gone are the days when I could blurt out the phone numbers from dozens of family and friends of the top of my head. Instead my cell phones handy address book has taken over the laborious task needed to remember such things as phone numbers, and with smart phones getting more technologically advanced, we tend to get even lazier; home addresses, emails, birthdays, anniversaries, shopping lists, appointments have all been assigned to our phone to remember. While this is indeed convenient, it does make me wonder what would happen if I lost my cell phone, how many people would I lose contact with? how many appointments would I miss? and would I starve to death forgetting to do my own grocery shopping?

After considering how much I rely on a device that was initially invented as a convenient form of communication, I have decided that as my next year's resolution I will use my cell phone more for calling people and less as a substitute memory. To be a 100% sure I do not forget, I have punched a reminder in my iPhone, to do that very thing on the next New Year's day. And as we all know New Years resolutions are written in stone and are never to be broken.

These are the results of my impromptu survey, consisting of 8 slightly intoxicated adults sitting around a dinner table.

The demographic consists of 5 males and 3 females. Ages ranging from 30 to 40. All semi-professionals.

2 did not remember their own number.

3 did not remember their bosses number.

5 did not remember more then 20 telephone numbers of family or friends.

And 8 could not remember more then 50 telephone numbers.

All of us had more then 300 contacts in our phones.

After my using my new "dumb" phone for a year, I now have a long list of phone numbers memorized. I also remember appointments without the annoying ring of my smartphones reminder constantly beeping in my pocket. Although I do still forget things like birthdays and anniversaries, but I put that down to me being a typical guy.

If I had a vote, I would say NO, as is, our children are bombarded with the conveniences that technology affords them. Giving a young child a smartphone has the potential to make them overly reliant on technology for the most mundane of tasks, for example; remembering their parents cell phone, home and office number.

Kids need to train their minds to remember things without technological aids like a smartphone or tablet. For that matter, adults should train their minds to do the same, lead by example.