TECHNOLOGY LIMITING CREATIVITY

The predominance of technology and smartphones in particular has led to many suggestions that
technology kills creativity. It is most common to find people on their phones looking at social apps,
playing games, or texting rather than communicating to each other face to face. Today’s generation
finds it very difficult to talk to people since they believe that it can get “awkward” and that it’s easier
to be on a device. Thoughts are always kept at bay because we simply zap any boredom by
distracting ourselves with our technological devices. That’s often the crux of the argument that we
are sacrificing original thoughts for keeping ourselves constantly entertained.

There has been decades of theory and research that tells us how the brain works for a child and how
much of an impact their primary years are. It’s essential for children to play and engage in the real
world by being active. Kids learn to be creative through direct plays and hands on experience with
materials, people and nature.

Since the end of the 1990s, creativity has become a growing area of interest once more within
education and the wider society. The internet now is rewiring us into shallow and inattentive
thinkers. It causes us to be distracted and diminishes our attention span. The use of technology also
cause people to be multitaskers in which people may think it’s a good thing but in reality, its not.
High mutitaskers are worse at managing their short term memory and switching tasks.

A person can access anything that they like online. There are some templates for everything that a
person can access including academic information and the same is available in the internet making
the process vulnerable to piracy and allegedly less creative. Technology can also be accused for
promoting lazy communication. From the use of simple emoticon to the proliferation of other
functions to express views, technology plays a vital role in restricting creativity.

Technology has improved the scores in intelligence. However it has apparently reduced the score in
creativity and the same is on the decline since the year 1990. The fear is of course that children have
substituted conventionally creative hobbies such as painting etc. for passive screen activities like
gaming. Technology needs to be thought of as a new medium built to improve and enhance
creativity and expression and not just as an information supply machine.

Pushing boundaries goes hand in hand with creativity; yet creative people still have a responsibility
to the audience. One of the drawbacks to the young people expressing and exploring their creative
identities in the online environment is that they are less regulated than real world ones. Its clear that
in order to truly thrive online, young people still require rich and diverse interactions with the real
world.

In summary, technology limits creativity in young people when not used appropriately. Creativity
looks vastly different from how it looked during the internet free childhood but technology will help
the young people to prepare for their own digital futures when used correctly.