Technology = Fatter, Dumber People?

I promise that I won't always write about education-related topics, but I just read another NYTimes.com article about how SAT Math scores have risen but SAT Verbal scores have remained flat, and have declined over the last 38 years from a high of 543 points in 1967 to 508 in 2005.

It reminded me of a thought I've held onto for a while now, and while it's no monstrous insight or revelation, it's an interesting conversation piece, if anything. I sometimes think that as technology has progressed, it has improved our math skills while impairing verbal skills.

Word-processing, for example, has made me a horrible essay-writer. Where children in the 50s and 60s and 70s had to start composing an essay from the beginning, I, with the powers bestowed on me by Microsoft Word, compose from the middle. It's just easier that way, for me at least.

Read books? Why not watch the movie?

Instant Messaging/Text-Messaging also wreaks it's own havoc. It's created it's own grammar and easily influenced youngsters (like my sister) begin to speak as if they are IMing someone. It's true, I've witnessed my sister speak to me in abbreviated, short sentences that would make no sense unless I translated what she said into IM talk. Of course, my sister must also be taking for granted that there is no running transcript of our dialog above my head.

E-mail has killed the handwritten letter.

There are plenty more examples, but I'd prefer to engage in an intellectual conversation than to simply preach from this soapbox of mine.