Going cashless: the buck stops here

Many of us already rely so heavily on smartphones for arithmetic that we prefer to let them calculate even the simplest sums, such as the 10% tip we'd like to leave in a restaurant. Arguably, this is just one part of a much wider challenge for the human brain as we move more of our life experiences into the digital arena.

The results of a ten-year research project, released late in 2011, suggest that people as young as 45 are beginning to experience the onset of dementia.

Given the increasing number of thought-activities we relegate to gadgets, isn't it feasible that within another decade things we currently associate with dementia might have become something like normal cognitive function?

Given our increasing engagement with this alternative digital universe, isn’t it possible that, within a decade, removing access to gadgets might leave us feeling as confused, troubled by language and withdrawn from other people as dementia sufferers often do today?

Michael Saling, a neuropsychologist at Melbourne University, has reported that increasing numbers of people are consulting medics about problems with memory. They’re afraid that they might be showing the early signs of dementia.

Many of these people, he says, are suffering from nothing more than ‘security protection code overload’. They’re simply feeling overwhelmed by all the numbers, codes and procedures they must remember in order to function in a computer-driven age.

There are important, as yet unanswered questions about the impact of digitizing everything from the books we read to the cars we drive.

A complete reliance on wave-and-pay buying might also free up human memory, which is surely one of the most threatened commodities of our time. We might be able to say goodbye to the plethora of PIN-codes, passwords and user names we try to cram into our already overloaded memories.

What’s more, going completely digital may end the need to juggle screeds of monthly statements, receipts and invoices. These could all morph into a single Cloud-based account, conveniently linked to our phone accounts and hosted on our Facebook or Google server.

The RBA says that most of the debt Australians carry is for mortgages, loans and credit cards. Not all debt is bad debt - mortgages and loans help people to prepare for their future. However, increasing numbers of people owe money for things they either cannot afford or don't need.