So, we're left to search on our own. The findings of the assessment, which has periodically examined selected groups of elementary and high school students since 1970, parallel the results of other systematic examinations of student abilities, including the Scholastic Aptitude Test. On that examination, taken annually by about one million college-bound students, average scores, in mathematics and verbal ability, have declined regularly for the past 14 years. For both customer and clerk, the simple exercise of calculating change has been eliminated widely by the electronic cash register. Hand-held calculators make it possible to do household arithmetic with scarcely any investment of brainpower, or even much attention.
Kids witness that and eventually take part in it themselves.
Soaring sales of even smarter electronic devices are hailed widely by the computer trade as the beginning of a new age of grander, intellectual horizons for ordinary folks. For many, it may turn out that way. But for many more, the new gadgets will mean a decline in the need to think hard, just as the revolution in mechanical machinery produced a decline in the need to work hard. The removal of mind from living has been immensely accelerated by electronics, but it's also to be found in other manifestations of high-tech society. So-called convenience foods, for example, which are booming despite their higher costs, enable the consumer to buy the manufacturer's skills, rather than go through the mental process of acquiring and employing those skills.