Chips under the skin: 'convenient' but not wise

Subcutaneous spending devices also raise the potential for digital dementia. In 2011, an international study concluded, after ten years of investigation, that the onset of dementia begins at around the age of 45, rather than 65 as was previously believed.

At the 2020Plus think tank, we posed an important question linked to this study. If a similar ten-year scientific investigation commenced today, would we find at its conclusion that things we associate with dementia in 2015 had now become normal cognitive function?

Would loss of short-term memory, numeracy skills and feelings of confusion have ceased to be peculiar because we had ceded so many areas of our thinking to machines?

We already rely on gadgets for arithmetic, spelling, navigation and, increasingly, person-to-person interaction. What happens to the parts of our brains responsible for these and other activities if they are no longer called upon on a regular basis?

A few weeks ago, a leading British psychiatrist suggested that children as young as five years of age are exhibiting borderline autism-like symptoms. They are, he said, unable to read the subtle facial signals in normal human conversation because of their engagement with digital screens.

A range of studies, particularly in the USA, suggests that we are forming transactional relationships with machines. We do not remember what we learn on the internet as much as we remember where we found it, relying on the machine to store the details.

This of course means that what we read is not stored in long-term human memory and provides no benefit for producing future innovation.

The experimental research of leading neuroscientists such as Baroness Susan Greenfield is building the case for watchfulness when it comes to relying too much on digital devices.

Finally, implants raise important health issues. Research is still ongoing into the impact of chips on the development of certain cancers. To this point, studies have only been carried out on laboratory animals. Yet even now, as the Australian reported earlier today, they point to links between chip implants and cancerous growths.

Technology is to be celebrated. There is no point in taking a luddite approach. Digital technologies have brought and will bring enormous benefits to the human experience.

That fact should not, however, make us oblivious to the potential pitfalls associated with making devices an extension – or an integral part – of the human frame.