Easy shouldn’t also mean lazy

So are we all well on the way to becoming slothful couch potatoes, anatomically and mentally incapable of operating without an array of machines? The latest fears being voiced about satnav systems sapping away our ability to navigate — because it makes users less aware of direction, distance and even landmarks — just add to the lengthening list of human abilities endangered by technologies of convenience. Arguably, it was because humans had to use every physical and mental faculty available — and then some — that they catapulted over other creatures roaming the planet in the early days of evolution.

If we hadn’t had to work, push, fight, deceive, charm, talk, cry and scream our way out of diverse situations, we would not have been able to eventually invent the internet or, indeed, satnav. But now, with a bewildering range of machines and technologies to take care of things for us, it does seem as though the effort is to tax as little of the body as possible in the future.

But to prevent our eventual mothballing by the very machines we created to make our lives more efficient, children need to be taught skills they consider redundant already. Apart from handwriting and arithmetic, some basic geography and map-reading lessons could mean avoiding landing up in Bhatinda, Rajasthan, when heading for Bathinda, Punjab.