As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take.

The past few centuries has seen an incredible rise in new inventions and tools. While many of these inventions has improved the standards of living for humans and made their lives easier, this rise in technology has not come without serious repercussions. With the advent of new technological tools, the ability for humans to think for themselves and accomplish what their ancestors could in the past without such tools has decreased significantly.

For example, the decrease in humans' ability to truly understand math has decreased with the invention and subsequent enhancements of calculators. Students have come to rely heavily on calculators for simple arithmetic calculations. While students may be forced to not use calculators for certain tests, they are no longer enthusiastic about trying to perform arithmetic operations without a calculator when given the choice to do so. As a result, people no longer think much about numbers and try to a develop a proper number sense. If such people know any mental math tricks, it is simply because someone else told them these tricks. It is rare for a person to try to figure out tricks like doubling and halving on their own. Likewise, the same can be said regarding the use of graphing calculators for graphing equations. How often can a student mentally figure out what y = |x^2 + 3| may look like without a calculator or computer program such as Wolfram Alpha? Very few indeed. No one tries to figure these things out anymore now that a computer or machine can do it for them. Students have lost their ability and desire to be creative in math. Thus, calculators have caused humans to stop trying to understand math at a much deeper level since it is no longer required of them to do so.

In addition to the field of mathematics, the decreasing ability for humans to think for themselves is also very prevalent in the medical industry. Now that blood tests, MRI scans, CT scans, and a whole other slew of testing mechanisms have been developed, doctors have come to rely more and more on the results of such tests and less on their own abilities. In places such as Pakistan and South Korea, it is now very difficult for a patient to find a doctor who can clinically diagnose which disease the patient is suffering from. In medical colleges and universities, students are increasily taught how to use new medical inventions instead of being taught how to rely on their own senses and deductive abilities. As a result, going to see a doctor has also become extravagantly expensive since a patient is forced to first perform numerous tests before the doctor is willing to even speak with the patient. Yet, how accurate are all these tests in the first place? A loose wire in an ECG machine could indicate a patient has died when they may still be breathing. A mix of up blood vials could mistakenly indicate that one patient is perfectly healthy while another may have Hepatitis C instead of vice versa. In addition to human errors in operating medical inventions, a machine can at any moment malfunction. Even then, a doctor is still more likely to rely on technology than to step in and figure out or double check the situation at hand. Therefore, it is quite clear that doctors are also losing the ability to diagnose a patient's problems without relying heavily on technology.

On the other hand, there is still a field in which humans are actually becoming more innovative and creative. This is the field of developing technology itself. Such humans, when faced with adversity, have become very contemplative and creative in attempting to dissect their problems and figure out how to make a tool that may help them succeed in accomplishing their goals. For instance, a simple villager was able to create a claw like machine to help pick coconuts off of high palm trees in order to avoid the dangers of climbing these trees and possibly falling down in the process. However, very few people are still trying to solve their problems by coming up with their own solutions or by making their own tools. The vast majority of humans just scavenge and purchase a machine to solve their problems for them, thus using much less brain power in the process.

Overall, the ability for humans to think for themselves is indeed declining with the advent of new technologies. This is especially evident in the fields of mathematics and medicine. If the tools such people used were suddenly taken away, they would struggle immensely. Humans need to learn not only how to use new technology, but also how to not use technology in order to preserve their ability to think.