IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2016 - 31

up with a good monograph on quantum physics or string theory, my
specialty" [5].) For the non-elite, the
exponentially accelerating power in
advancing technology is not symbiotic. It does not enhance human
powers, skills, and relationships -
it erodes them. The sensation of
power users feel with technology
that does the work for them is an
illusion, one that is only revealed
when, for whatever reason - say
Hurricane Sandy - the power,
the connectivity, and the enabling
is gone.
In her book, Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran
Their Evolutionary Purpose, Dr.
Deirdre Barrett cited the nine-month
study I conducted in New York City's
Penn Station on commuters overwhelmingly taking the escalator
rather than climbing up a measly 18
steps from the lower to the upper
level of the station [6]. The reason
why commuters, even in rush hour,
actually wait in long lines to take
the escalator rather than climb up
even a short flight of steps is their
brains are on autopilot. Drawing
on the fictional but useful agents
of behavior originally proposed by
psychologists, Keith Stanovich and
Richard West, the fast, habit driven,
shortcut seeking, convenience loving, comfort relishing, effort minimizing, sucker for salt, sugar, and
fat, brain is what Daniel Kahneman,
co-winner of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, in
his best-selling, Thinking Fast and
Slow, calls "System 1" [7]. "System
2" is the deliberative, more energy
demanding, critical thinking brain,
the brain a student would have to
deploy to, say, multiply 17 × 24 in
his head instead of knee-jerk reaching for the calculator, the brain that
could put two and two together and
conclude there was something fishy
about Bernie Madoff's consistent,
too good to be true, returns.
june 2016

Without thinking, System 1 draws us to the
escalator. Were she to
The sensation of power users feel
even just a tad engage
System 2, the commutwith technology that does the
er wou ld rea li ze that,
work for them is an illusion.
although letting the technology do the work of lifting is easier, waiting on
line to take the escalator
With apps, hard and soft, gaining
when it will take ten seconds or
exponentially in power and ubiquity,
less to climb the 18 steps, exerabsent a System 2 step-back-forcise included, is stupid. The once
chewing-on-what-doing-it-all-for-us
upon a time, survival crucial, "oriis also doing to us, access to real
enting response," cueing us to
brain gain will continue to bifurcate
look, look, look for predator threat
ever more steeply, not only into the
and prey promise, hooks System 1
haves and have-nots, but into the
with jolts of dopamine as we scroll
haves who have and the haves who
down and down texts and selfies,
have not.
ads slipped in en route. "Why am
I wasting my life on Facebook?"
Author Information
asks System 2 [8].
Jeff Robbins is with Rutgers UniAlas, smart use of any technoloversity, New Brunswick, NJ. Email:
gy, much as choosing the healthier,
jhrobbin@rci.rutgers.edu.
and even faster when there's a line,
stairs to the next level demands
References
more effort than is absolutely nec[1] M. Kaku, The Future of the Mind: The Sciessary when our satisficing, food
entific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and
energy preserving, System 1 magEmpower the Mind. New York, NY: Doubleday,
2014.
netically draws us to whatever is
[2] A. Hutchinson, "Global impositioning sysless demanding, more comfortable,
tems: Is GPS technology actually harming our
techno-boob job tastier. As with calsense of direction," The Walrus, Nov. 2009.
[3] J. Robbins, "GPS: A turn by turn caseculators, as with GPS navigation, as
in-point," J. Cases on Information Technolwith robo-docs/lawyers/secretaries,
ogy (JCIT), vol. 13, no. 2, 2011; http://www.
apps, smart pills, smart, symbiotic
igi-global.com/article/journal-cases-informationtechnology-jcit/54463, accessed Dec. 20, 2015.
use will increasingly be the province
[4] H. Gardner and K. Davis, The App Generaof the relatively few who, for whattion: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity,
ever reason, are highly motivated
Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World.
New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2013, p. 191.
to make the extra effort that smart,
[5] K. Murphy, "Michio Kaku," New York Times
symbiotic use demands.
Sunday Rev., Feb. 8, 2014.
The plunge in the cost of com[6] D. Barrett, Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal
Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose.
puting (in 1972, the average price
New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2010, pp. 150-151.
per transistor was about 15 cents,
[7] D. Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow.
1
in 2015 it is 0.00000011 cents [9] )
New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011,
has enabled vast global, rising-tidep. 20.
[8] N. Bilton, "Reclaiming Our (Real) Lives
lifts-all clicks, pokes, swipes, pinchfrom Social Media," New York Times, July
es, and twirls access to technology.
16, 2014.
But that access guarantees neither
[9] R. Kurzweil, How to Create a Mind: The
Secret of Human Thought Revealed. New York,
smart use nor smartening users.
NY: Viking, 2012, p. 260.

The logarithmic plot of Average Transistor Price
vs. Year was extrapolated from 2008 to 2015
assuming a halving of cost per 1.6 years.

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