I think the more complex technologies the brain has to master, the more learning it has to do, the better equipped it will be.
I'd say that sort of depends. My personal experience with tool-learning falls mainly in the area of literacy, and it's actually sort of scary how the bar for functional literacy keeps getting higher and higher, since inevitably it's going to start leaving more and more people out. At one point, you were considered literate if you could write your name and maybe a few other things. Later on, you had to be able to read text as well as write. Then you had to be able to write as well as you could read, to a certain specified level. Then you had to be able to process complicated information presented in highly abstracted forms (e.g. telling time using more than one system of clock, deciphering maps and transit schedules) as well as read and write to an equal level. Now, it's getting so that the basic definition of functional literacy includes all that and being able to interpret and navigate a computer interface.
Concomitant with that and other similar societal developments has been a lengthening of the period of formal education it takes to create a functioning adult.
That's just one area of tool use, and there are countless others. So from the point of view that most likely we're going to hit a tipping point somewhere, yes, I think there are ample grounds to suggest that one ought not have to learn a completely new skill set every time one has to do a simple task.
(no subject)
I'd say that sort of depends. My personal experience with tool-learning falls mainly in the area of literacy, and it's actually sort of scary how the bar for functional literacy keeps getting higher and higher, since inevitably it's going to start leaving more and more people out. At one point, you were considered literate if you could write your name and maybe a few other things. Later on, you had to be able to read text as well as write. Then you had to be able to write as well as you could read, to a certain specified level. Then you had to be able to process complicated information presented in highly abstracted forms (e.g. telling time using more than one system of clock, deciphering maps and transit schedules) as well as read and write to an equal level. Now, it's getting so that the basic definition of functional literacy includes all that and being able to interpret and navigate a computer interface.
Concomitant with that and other similar societal developments has been a lengthening of the period of formal education it takes to create a functioning adult.
That's just one area of tool use, and there are countless others. So from the point of view that most likely we're going to hit a tipping point somewhere, yes, I think there are ample grounds to suggest that one ought not have to learn a completely new skill set every time one has to do a simple task.