The Brain Is Just A Button Press

By now, seeing people doing a thumb-dance on a cellphone isn't a rare view anymore. SMS really revolutionize the way we input data to our gadget. It only take a series of presses to a certain combination of buttons, then all you want to say is well written. Well, NOT iF yOu'Re tHe tYpE Of pERSoN wHO LiKe To tYpe ThIS wAy, wHIcH aMaZInGLY cOUld BE DoNe in unDEr 3 miNUtEs... while it took forever for me.

I wonder, though, if maybe we have too much of a good thing now. How many people's lives would stop without their personal gizmos at arm's reach? Just like the rest of the body, the brain also gets soft and squishy around the middle without exercise, and these little brain-savers allow us to think as little as possible. Take, for example, the cashier I met last week, who's register broke down. After handing her a Rp 50.000 bill, a Rp 100 and a Rp 200 for my Rp 42.300 total, she stared at me as if I had just asked for my change in centavos.

Of course, I'm no exception to this brain-free lifestyle. I've managed to input most of my life into my smartphone, and the moment each item goes in, it seems to vanish from my mind: friends' phone numbers I've called for years, family birthdays, addresses, schedules, you name it. One dead battery in this thing will leave me socially inactive for years:

"Pip! I haven't talked to you in months! Dead battery?"

"(sigh) Yeah, how about you?"

"The speed-dialer on my phone broke...you were number eight."

Since we're using our brains less often, modern high-tech people will need some new exercises to keep in shape mentally, like, maybe, finger exercise.