Are Smartphones Making Us Stupid?

1. Set Focus
Frame the inquiry with these essential questions: In what ways does technology improve our lives? In what ways does it cause problems?

2. Read and Discuss
Have students read the debate and then answer the following questions:

• What is the issue being debated? What makes it worthy of discussion? (The issue is whether smartphones are making us stupid by causing us to focus on trivial things. The issue is worthy of discussion because more than 80 percent of Americans own a smartphone.)

• Evaluate why these two authors might be interested in and qualified to comment on this issue. (Andrew Keen wrote the book The Internet Is Not the Answer. David Weinberger works for the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.)
  

3. Core Skill Practice
Project or distribute Analyzing Authors’ Claims and have students use the activity to analyze and evaluate each author’s arguments.

• Analyze Keen’s view. (Keen argues that smartphones are making us stupid. He says we don’t use them to gain a wider knowledge of the world. Instead, we use them to send messages and post images of our daily activities, such as what we just ate. As a result, he says, we end up knowing the minutiae of our own lives and less about the world.)

• Analyze Weinberger’s view. (Weinberger argues that smartphones are not making us stupid. He says they enhance our ability to have high-level discussions by helping us move past disputes over facts. He also says they give us greater access to information, which makes us smarter, and when we share information, we help make the rest of the world smarter.)
  

4. Writing Prompt
In an essay, evaluate one of the debaters’ arguments. Assess whether the reasoning is valid and whether it’s supported with evidence. Point out biases or missing information.

5. Classroom Debate
Are smartphones making us stupid? Have students use the authors’ ideas, as well as their own, in a debate.

6. Vote
Go online to vote in Upfront’s poll—and see how students across the country voted.