Our phones are smart, so why aren't we?
There's so much information out there, but people seem dumber
I was in Canadian Tire the other day, looking for a crescent wrench. I live in a 109-year-old wood-frame house so, trust me, hammers and screwdrivers and wrenches are in constant demand because, on any given day, a doorknob falls off or a screw comes loose and, well, it's a big old pile of timber and ancient nails and impending disrepair.
Anyway, I asked the fellow on floor duty where I might find such a tool in his big store. “A crescent wrench?” he said. “Yes, a crescent wrench,” I said. Radio silence.
Last summer, I was in Walmart looking for lawn ornaments. Don't ask, just know it was to be a joke gift and, anyway, when I asked the young woman in the seasonal department if they had any plastic pink lawn flamingos in stock, she said:
“Flamingos?”
“Yes, flamingos,” I said.
Radio silence.
Over Thanksgiving last year, I was in my local Save-on grocery store, and I asked the gentleman stocking the vegetable bins if there were any brussels sprouts on order, given there weren't any in sight.
“Brussels sprouts?” he said. “Yes, brussels sprouts,” I said. Radio silence.
I know you think I'm making this up, but they did not know what the hell I was talking about. Had never heard of a crescent wrench, or a flamingo or a brussels sprout, and truly had no idea why I was visibly shocked that they didn't.
Maybe it's just me, but how is that possible? It was all I could do, forgive me, not to slap them silly. How can an adult man not know what a crescent wrench is? How is it a grown woman has never heard of a flamingo. And the produce guy? Come on.
Maybe it's just me, but does it seem to anyone else that we are in the midst of a great unravelling of knowledge, a gradual but universal dumbing down?
Most of us — several billion by current estimates — hold in the palm of our hand, or in a pocket or a purse, one of the greatest inventions of our time, a magic portable repository, a universal library if you will, that contains more instantly accessible knowledge gathered in one place, ever.
But we don't seem to be getting any smarter.
I get that this sounds snarky and cranky, a senior's snotty version of “you know you're getting old when” and “kids these days don't know anything.”
But it's not just young people, it's everywhere you turn, online and in the grocery aisle, a barrage of alarming evidence that modern life today is nurtured by purposeful amnesia and an utter lack of curiosity, where the history and culture and politics that came before warrant neither merit nor recollection.
It's like we are evolving backward.
Maybe we don't expect enough of people, or encourage them to ask more questions. Maybe we don't teach each other enough, in and out of classrooms. Maybe we don't say often enough, “Hey, if you don't know the answer, ask your smartphone.”
Maybe algorithms that determine online content are blunting our collective ken, like blinders that keep racehorses in check. Maybe Shakespeare doesn't matter, and maybe the Holocaust should be a distant memory, and maybe you don't need to know what a crescent wrench is. Except that he does, and we must never forget and, yes, you should.
Then again, maybe it's just me, a fading anachronism who doesn't know as much as she should either, but thinks life is one big, glorious learning curve and why on earth would you want to jump off when it's just so interesting. Or maybe it's just anthropology, a natural evolution that has us turning inward, laser focused on cat videos and mean tweets, as the vault of knowledge sits undisturbed.
Maybe it really doesn't matter. Maybe it's just me.