Do not be a digital dummy

My Mother-in-law is 77 years old. The phone she uses is analogue, but what is impressive about her is that she has memorized close to 30 phone numbers! She had her cataracts done the other day and she would dictate a number she would want to call when she couldn’t see the digits and have someone dial for her. In this age where almost everything is digitalized let me ask you this alluring question: How many numbers do you know by heart? Phone numbers? Account numbers? National Identity card numbers? Social Security Numbers? Car registrations number? BVN number? How many of these do you know off hand? If you don’t know any of them and have to rely on your phone, your IPAD or palm top, then you may have unwittingly become a digital dummy!
A digital dummy is a person who needs a digital device to look up information which in an analogue world, he would have probably memorized. The creator in his infinite mercy has given you a brain which is occupied by your mind. What do you use your mind for? I am sure you heard of the expert analysis that says we only use a minimal percentage of our brain power. In this digital world, it is sad to note that we even use less of our brains and rely on gadgets to do our calculus, to grasp our intelligence and even analyze fellow human beings. Jim Kwik of Kwik Learning is a brain development expert; he says that we can train our brains to do exceptional things like memorizing large portions of information in a short period of time or memorizing a sequence that we need to act in play, a movie or even a new language or a song!
Think about it! How many songs do you know off hand? For some people that is a hundred or more? How did you get to memorize so many lyrics? In high school we were taught to memorize vital information by linking it to a story or a song. Have we lost that ability since we left high school? No. What has really happened is that since we do not use it, the ability has become dormant. The brain develops when we use it effectively. If we are determined to remember something, we can. Experiments have been conducted on the use of the brain by several experts and the summary of their findings is that the brain of the human being has the amazing capability to recollect large amounts of information over a period and access that information in a nick of time. What that means is that between our ears we carry a super computer that can file away several amounts of material but the tragedy is we do not use that ability.
We have a generation of people who were born at the turn of the century. We have categorized them as millennials. They live on the internet, send messages only by email or text or whatsapp and are using artificial intelligence for a lot of their work. Now these things are good. But what is bad is when we over rely on these tools which are supposed to compliment our brains and not necessarily replace them. Jim Kwik emphasizes “there is no such things as a good or bad memory, there are only trained memories and untrained memories “. Our task in this digitalized world would be to make sure that our memories are trained.
Whether its idea generation and meetings crunching numbers or copywriting, there are a lot of different situations in which more focus and improved thinking ability can be achieved. It would allow you to get more done in a shorter amount of time, and come up with unique solutions to problems that you might not have been able to deal with. We must consistently seek to improve our thinking ability and rely less on gadgets to solve our problems. It all begins with our habits. We need to watch less television, put away our phones for a period, exercise more, eat natural foods like nuts and fruits, and drink a lot of water and exercise. Social media has become a distraction for many of us. We can hardly concentrate on a creative process without popping on to facebook, snap chat or twitter or instagram. These media have become distractions for many of us. . There are intellectual things we need to engage in to improve our capability. Research shows that after university education, most graduates do not read any kinds of books anymore. They feel that they have reached their highest level of intellectual development. Nothing could be further from the truth. A research was done among aged nuns in different parts of the world. These ladies were in their 70s and many of them lived to be over a hundred. The results of the research showed that apart from a healthy eating and exercise, the nuns were committed to a life of continuous learning. So to develop our brains consistently, we have to learn new things. Read, study sign up for continuous development. Attend seminars and conferences; try to recall information at random. If you just attended a programme ask yourself: what are the main issues that were discussed there? How can I use this information? Our brains have the capacity for much more than we use them for. If we do not want to become digital dummies we need to use our minds more. Think about it. Suppose you lose your phone or whatever digital device you rely on, would you be able to function properly? Gradually we need to disengage ourselves from overtly relying on our digital devices.