Who's Smartest?

Children, put away your books and separate your desks. Here come the two most hated words in the English language, POP QUIZ.

Question 1)

What is 5 to the power of 10?

a) 5

b) 50

c) 5,000,000

d) 9,765,625

Question 2) What is the population of China? (as of 2009)

a) 1,000,000,000

b) 10,000,000,000

c) 9

d) 1,331,460,000

Question 3) How many divots are there on a standard-issue golf ball?

a) 307

b) 250

c) 456

d) 411

Question 4) What is the longest flight time for a chicken?

a) 60 seconds

b) 3 minutes

c) 6 minutes

d) Thirteen seconds

Question 5)

Upon the googling of "George W. Bush", what is the first item shown on the list?

a) The White House Website

b) Monkeys of the world unite

c) Largest failures of the United States

d) George Bush Wikipedia Page

So...the answer to all of these questions was D. Now, I don't really care what score you achieved, you little brown-noser, go tell your mama. The point of this little exercise was to see how you answered the questions. If you're reading my blog, you're obviously connected to the internet, so the answers are right at your fingertips from the get-go. But, I want to know what kind of technology you actually used. I feel like these days, so many people that I know (who will here be considered as the young adults of metropolitan Canada) have smartphones. Did you use your smartphone or other large-brained handheld device? If so, I have some bad news for you.

YOUR PHONE IS SMARTER THAN YOU.

So it seems that we have harnessed technology and made it miniature so we can carry the entire encyclopedia of human information in the butt pockets of our Levi's jeans. To be honest, I'd be kind of embarrassed for you if you got any of those questions wrong.

Imagine forty years ago, when our smartest scientists were building the first computer. It was as large as a house, and probably had about enough RAM to win a game of tic-tac-toe (the trick is to start in the corner, not the middle). Can't fit that in your pocket...even if you're on Atkins.

So I have an idea...this is gonna be crazy. Why don't we dumb down our phones? What would happen if everyone carried around these things that just answered calls? They wouldn't do anything else, they wouldn't play games or answer skill testing questions...they would just be phones. They wouldn't be smart, they'd just be. Everyone is throwing away their regular phones for smartphones, but if we did that to our friends we'd be called some very mean names and maybe even have some rotten produce thrown at us. 

So maybe, next time you're looking for a phone, you'll keep in mind that there are some normal average-I.Q. phones that need a home in your pocket too.