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There is no doubt these inventions have made us more efficient, but the concern lies in what happens when we stop flexing the parts of the brain that are responsible for these tasks. And over time, some argue we might lose those abilities. There is an old ethos of "use it or lose it" that may apply to cognitive tasks as well.

Despite concerns that calculators would destroy our ability to do math, research has generally shown that there is little difference in performance when calculators are used and when they are not. Some have even been critical that the school system still generally spends so much time teaching students foundational techniques like learning the multiplication tables when they can now solve those sorts of problems at the touch of a button, said Matthew Fisher, a researcher at Southern Methodist University.

On the other hand, others argue that this part of the curriculum is important because it provides the foundational mathematical building blocks from which students learn other parts of math and science, he explained. As Fisher told Salon in a phone interview: "If we just totally get rid of that mathematical foundation, our intuition for later mathematical study, as well as just for living in the world and understanding basic relationships, is going to be off.”

-Elizabeth Hlavinka in Salon.com