Do Smart Phones Make Us Smarter or Dumber? [VIDEO]

Collegehumor.com posted an hilarious video that imagined what it would look like if there were smart phones involved in the plots of classic stories and movies.

What if Juliet just left Romeo a message that she was only faking her death? Maybe he wouldn't 'freak out', as she puts it in the video, and take his own life. That makes it a different story altogether.

In fact, smart phones create a different reality for us. We no longer have to worry if we are late, because we can just call or text and let them know. Back in the day, we would have left a message from a payphone to their home phone that they would receive after time spent hours wondering why we didn't show. We don't have to remember any definitions because we can just look them up. We don't have to memorize directions because our GPS will tell us the way.

Do smart phones make us dumb? There is little incentive to retain any knowledge because as long as we have a network connection, we can look up anything and have a universe of information just waiting for us to access it. If 'amount of facts we can keep in our heads' is how we measure intelligence, then smart phones may have a bad affect on it.

Instead, it may change how we classify intelligence. Now that it is unnecessary to remember endless facts and information, I hope that it can free us to use our noodles for more important things.

Understanding requires a lot of brain power. Positive thinking in the face of what seems like bad circumstances is difficult. Tolerance, forgiveness, cooperation and love are more difficult for some people to achieve than intolerance, indignancy, stubborness, and hate.

Maybe, since we don't have to know the capitals of the states anymore, we can focus more of our cognitive effort towards things that change the world for the better. Memorization probably takes a significant portion or our cerebral power, and now that that portion is barely necessary, can we refocus that energy toward making ourselves happier? Can we reallocate it to living a life that we are completely proud of, or accomplishing our wildest dreams. I like the sound of that, so I'm going to believe it starting right now.