TECHNOLOGY: ARE WE ADDICTED TO IT?

Technology now a day has become an integral part of urban life. It’s even impossible to imagine life without technology. Wherever we see we find technology comforting our life. You want to talk to someone, no matter wherever he/she is, you have mobile. You have television to entertain you to keep you updated with news/events across the globe. And last but not the least we can use technology in education.  We can use projectors in school, e-learning and software for various teaching purpose.

This looks like a really good scenario, but if we delve a little deeper we can find some kind of problem with this technology.  This technology is making us addictive to it. For example, calculator, calculator helps us do very complicated calculations but you can easily find people doing very trivial addition also on calculator. You remove calculator away from them, they will take a lot of time to do that calculation.

Let’s take one more example, internet. We all know that internet provides us with vast source and access to knowledge. With the help of internet you can send e-mail which has revolutionized the communication. We can do shopping sitting at home. We have social networking sites to stay connected but these social networking sites are becoming addiction to people. People develop their virtual world and start living in it. Researchers found nearly four in five students had significant mental and physical distress, panic, confusion and extreme isolation when forced to unplug from technology for an entire day. Isn’t this an alarming situation?

According to me we should use technology in such a way that we don’t get addicted to it. I would like to say “Use technology but don’t let technology use u.” We should use technology for education but we should also consider the adverse effect which might arise due to overuse of it.

THE MAN WITH A VISION

It was the month of October, we 54 students joined IISER pune, some had no other option, some because of motivation towards science and some because of that stipend which they were giving us. We didn’t knew anything about science. At that time there was a big question that people use to ask “yaha se nikalne ke baa acha paisa to milega na?”, IISER being an Indian Institute had given a good platform for many of us to dream.

                One day we got a mail from our director saying that there is a special seminar by Mr. Arvind Gupta from IUCAA. They have mentioned in the mail that this man is a B.Tec. from IIT Kanpur and now he make toys for children. We thought he must be an entrepreneur. We entered the seminar hall, jam packed, we found a place from where the speaker is visible, with full enthusiasm we were waiting for him to come.

                Clock hits 11, our heart beat fastened. We saw a middle heighted guy, in his mid 50’s entering the hall. He was wearing a khadi kurta paijama on bathroom slippers and carrying am old bag on his shoulders. Long beard looks like he has forgotten to shave.  We were shocked, we imagined a guy in suite, clean shaved and he was nowhere near what we expected. We started murmuring among us.

                The seminar started, we were still fighting the ghost of IITan we had in our mind. He was giving us a motivational lecture. He told us what he feels about the current education system. He said that “Science is a subject which should come naturally to every student but why is it that student fear science.”  We thought he is talking too abstractly but then he asked a question. How many of you think that physics is your passion? In a fraction of second 20 hands were raised. Then he asked them how many of you can explain working of a motor to a illiterate kid? People started looking at each other this time only couple of half raised hand was there. He called them and requested them to explain. They didn’t take much time to give up.

He said “Money is not everything, the pleasure I get in making toys for children is more than any other in this world”. This was really shocking for us. This is first time we met a person felt like that. Then he told us about what he calls as tragedy, “There are enough institutes generating a lot of knowledge and at the same time they are making things complicated”. He added that “I try to make them simple for my young friends to understand, through these toys.” Then from his bag he took out couple of magnificent toys and demonstrated their working and construction.

After that when he finished the seminar we felt a new energy flowing through us. Some of us went to IUCAA to visit his office following weekend. It was one of the best seminar I have ever attended. That day I realized that there are some people who devoted their life for a cause.

LANGUAGE: IS IT SCIENTIFIC?

We had a course at IISER(Indian Institute of Science Education and Research), Pune where we have been introduced to linguistics and phonetics. We all thought that there is no use of such course for science students because we thought that this course will be an unscientific course. It will be mostly mugging up things. So some of us decided to skip the lectures. But we attended few of them and we were clueless of what the lecturer is saying. There were some jargons like analysis of language, phonetics and phonology. And when I heard that we are going to have a session on language during our induction program, I expected the same thing.

                But when the session started I sensed that this is different from what I expected. And as the session progressed, astonishingly, I realized that language is as scientific as anything else. I came to know about natural tendency for alternation of C and V. And I also realized that all the languages are almost same, the difference lies in the script in which they are written.

                 We also try to design a general formula for making negative of a sentence and at that moment I realized that language is no less logical than mathematics. SVO and SOV structure of sentences, there is a governing rule behind almost everything we did. Then we realized that language is something that comes naturally to us. “We apply the rules without knowing them”.

                 I would like to say that I personally feel,  it would have been better if I would have attend the full course at IISER. But still I am happy that at the end of the day my myth that language is unscientific faded away.  

ENVIRONMENT AND GENETICS: CAN WE SEPARATE THESE TWO ASPECTS?

Before I go into the explaining the question, I would like to clarify couple of things. Firstly, being genetic and being inherited. If we say something is genetic that doesn’t means it’s inherited. But if we say something is inherited means it’s genetic.  In other words, if I say that some trait is genetic that doesn’t mean it will be inherited. For example, our eye color is inherited, which means it’s genetic.

  Secondly, In my discussion with Dr. L.S. Shashidhara couple of days back, I rose the same question which we all are pondering upon. Is intelligence genetic? He told me I should understand that, this question has different meaning in different context.

  According to him, Biologists look at intelligence as the ability of the brain to receive and process information. Biological basis of all learning and memory is dependent on how the brain is formed and developed (formation of neuronal network). Since all biological phenomenon are controlled by gene products (while at the same time influenced by the environment), one can say there is genetic basis for intelligence too.  This doesn’t mean that intelligence is inherited.(As I have explained the difference between being genetic and inherited).

 Educationists and social science people look at intelligence as ability to learn in schools and learn modern knowledge. This is largely dependent on learning environment, like peer group, teachers, teaching/learning methods etc.
Furthermore, new neuronal connections are made during our childhood. This is an evolutionarily-adapted strategy to prepare the brain depending on which environment you live. So a kid's ability to perceive and process information is more dependent on environment than genetic factors. The latter is important for the ability of neurons to send out their axons and to make synapses(.for more details) That is primary requirement.

http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v16/n10/full/mp201185a.html ,this paper says intelligence is a multigenic trait(depends on functioning of many genes). Any such trait will show more variations than single gene-regulated traits(which is dependent on functioning of one gene). The probability that children inherit genetic ability of parents to learn and process information is very low. Mathematically speaking - we can say it is inheritable. But in real world, it has such low probability, the environmental influence masks genetic influence. 

According to me, we cannot separate the environmental and genetic factor because environment also affects our genetic makeup. This is precisely Darvin’s Theory of Evolution. For example, we all know that we don’t have a tail unlike our ancestors (more precisely genetically very closely related species have tails). This means that because we were not using our tail for long time (many generations) it got removed from our genetic makeup.

Finally, I would like to say that YES, in biological terms intelligence is genetic but it’s environment which dominates and mostly it’s environmental factor which matters because environmental factor can affect our genetic makeup. That is why I say that environment and genetic factors cannot be separated.