I’ve been thinking about intelligence lately. Not in the abstract, academic sense, but in the way we measure it in our everyday lives. I keep coming back to this question that I hear all the time: Are we getting dumber because we don’t memorize phone numbers anymore?
After all, our grandparents could rattle off dozens of phone numbers from memory. We can barely remember our own. Doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t that prove that technology is making us less intelligent?
The short answer is no. The longer answer is more interesting and it’s worth exploring why this myth persists. What does intelligence actually mean in a world where we carry supercomputers in our pockets?
Why Memorizing Phone Numbers Was Never About Being Smart
Here’s the thing about memorization. Sure, it’s a skill but it’s not a sign that someone is intelligent.
When people say that past generations were smarter because they memorized phone numbers, they’re assuming that doing something difficult made you smarter.
Memorizing phone numbers is what cognitive scientists call crystallized intelligence. It’s the accumulation of knowledge, facts, skills and experience that we store in our heads over time.
While that’s useful, it’s not the same as fluid intelligence. Fluid intelligence is the ability to adapt to unfamiliar situations without relying on prior experience, think quickly and solve problems.
People memorized phone numbers passively because they had to tap or dial them into the phone to make a phone call. Let’s pretend you spent an hour memorizing phone numbers in 1985. Congrats, you have phone numbers in your head.
If you spend that same hour today creating something new, or learning how to use a new tool, you’re doing something fundamentally different. You’re not just storing information. You’re building the capacity to think.
Here’s something else worth noting. Most people in the pre-smartphone era didn’t actually memorize dozens of phone numbers. They used physical directories. They called people directly. They relied on friends and family for contacts. Only a small fraction of people, like salespeople or switchboard operators, memorized many numbers professionally.
The idea that everyone walked around with a mental Rolodex is a fantasy.
What Technology Actually Does to Our Brains
If memorization isn’t intelligence, what is? And what does technology have to do with it?
When we use tools like smartphones, calculators, or search engines, we’re not losing intelligence. We’re redirecting it. Cognitive scientists call this cognitive offloading.
Before smartphones, you passively memorized phone numbers as you dialed phone numbers. Now, with smartphones, you can save phone numbers once and never have to dial them again. The time spent managing phone numbers previously can now be spent solving a problem, creating something, or learning something new.
Your brain hasn’t gotten weaker but it should have gotten more efficient.
Research supports this. Studies show that when we delegate tasks to tools, our brains free up space for more complex thinking. The question isn’t whether you can memorize a phone number. What’s important is whether you can use your brain to solve a problem that actually matters.
The challenges we face today require a different kind of intelligence than the challenges people faced in the past. A person in the 1920s might have memorized a ten-digit phone number. A person today might memorize a URL, a password, or a complex app interface. More importantly, today’s challenges require navigating systems and troubleshooting technology. We’re constantly trying to understand how to find information in a noisy digital world.
The Myth of “The Good Old Days”
I think part of why this myth persists is nostalgia. People look back at a time when technology wasn’t needed, and they feel like life was simpler. They remember being able to do things that feel difficult now, and they assume that means they were smarter then.
I wonder if what they’re really feeling is the discomfort of change.
It’s true that learning new things can feel harder as we get older. But here’s the thing. Excluding people who have health issues, it’s not impossible for the brain to learn something new. It’s the habits we’ve used daily that makes it feel harder.
Your brain isn’t broken. It’s just used to doing things a certain way. As technology surges forward, as it has in recent years, it can feel overwhelming. It can feel like you’re drowning. Like you’re not keeping up.
I get that. I really do but feeling out of touch isn’t the same as being less intelligent. It’s just the feeling of being in a world that’s moving faster than you’re used to.
What Intelligence Looks Like Today
If memorization isn’t intelligence, what is?
Intelligence is adaptability. It’s knowing how to find the right information in a world full of noise. It’s understanding how to use the tools at your disposal to solve problems that didn’t exist a generation ago.
Let me give you an example. A person in 1900 might have been brilliant at mechanical problems. They could take apart a machine, figure out what was wrong, and put it back together. But if you dropped them into 2026 and asked them to troubleshoot an app, they’d be lost.
Does that mean they were less intelligent? Of course not. It means their intelligence was specialized to their environment.
The same is true for us. We’re not dumber because we don’t memorize phone numbers. We’re optimized for a different world. A world where the challenge isn’t storing information, but knowing what to do with it.
Why This Myth is Dangerous
Here’s what worries me about the idea that past generations were smarter.
When we believe that memorization is the pinnacle of human capability, we reject useful tools. We assume using technology is a sign of weakness, when in reality, it’s a sign of intelligence. The best minds in history have always used tools to amplify their thinking. Pythagoras used geometry. Einstein used math. We use smartphones.
When we choose to live in the past, we ignore the need for digital literacy and the challenges of misinformation. We ignore the ways technology is changing how we think and work.
What I’ve Learned
I keep coming back to one thing. Intelligence is about what you create with the tools you have.
I remember the memory orbs from Inside Out. They started out a single color, representing a single emotion. Near the end of the film, the orbs were a rainbow of different colors and memories mixed together.
That’s what intelligence looks like, too. It’s layered, complex, and constantly evolving. And in that sense, we’re smarter now than we’ve ever been.
