What is 427 x 935?
Back in the day, to solve this problem, you had to sit down with a pencil, a piece of paper and wrestle it into submission.
But these days we have calculators and calculators have robbed all the difficult problem solving from this equation.
Instead of learning our times tables off by heart, we’ve learnt that we can just go to the calculator and it’ll give us the answer.
Why bother hurting your head? Just go to the calculator!
This behaviour extends beyond maths problems and appears everywhere.
Why bother learning off capitals of the world when you can just google them?
Why bother learning to spell when there is autocorrect in the world?
I think this habit has an obvious benefit – save valuable brain space and avoid exerting unnecessary cognitive energy.
But I also think in certain situations it pays to not outsource the thinking and develop your own problem solving abilities instead.
If every time you encounter a problem at work you go to Yolanda for the answer, you are not learning to stand on your own two feet but rather how to lean harder on Yolanda.
Now Yolanda might be exacerbating the issue by jumping in, uninvited, to solve all your problems but you can change that.
You can start hoarding some problem solving for yourself.
I think you’re future self would appreciate it, especially when the shit hits the fan.
Thomas Duggan 