Breaking News: Common Sense Passed Away After Long Battle With Technology

Leaving the library feeling semi-optimistic, riding on the high of an adequate lock-in session, I begin my journey to work. Unfortunately, my fellow St Andreans have decided to squash my mood quite abruptly.

Perhaps I’d be less bothered if I were heading to something less soul-crushing than my job, but as I approach a group of people standing five-wide, chatting across a narrow pavement with seemingly no intention of moving, my good mood begins to deteriorate. Apparently, expecting them to shuffle to the side is too ambitious a hope. My verbal attempt to fight for some pavement through a muttered ‘excuse me’ is rendered futile when only the birds chirp in response. Forced to breach the personal space barrier, I shoulder-barge my way through. Of course, I throw a (mildly) passive-aggressive look as I pass so that if they decide to suddenly acknowledge my existence, they’d at least be well aware of my disappointment. Common sense, it seems, has disappeared.

Continuing my walk with the air of a disappointed grandparent who disdains ‘youths,’ I encounter yet more evidence of common sense’s extinction. The stranger whose tailwind I have been following for the last 100 metres abruptly stops to check their phone, narrowly escaping being doused by my dangerously hot coffee. Meanwhile, it seems that the fast-moving, two-tonne objects on the road have ceased to be a danger, as people comfortably step straight into the middle of the road without taking their eyes off their phones. Mood status updated to: sour. 

Arriving at work to stand around aimlessly for a few hours, I succumb to boredom and welcome the distraction of my own thoughts. Apparently, returning salt shakers after use is too great a feat for some. After making five unnecessary trips across the dining hall to return them, I once again question the collective competence of humanity. As I clean the tables with rather more frustration than they deserve, I arrive at the conclusion that common sense isn't about being particularly intelligent, but about the simpler affairs of everyday life. 

To me, common sense lies in the ability to observe a situation, exercise a little practical judgment, and consider how your actions affect those around you. Although it may feel as though the world revolves around us, a little common sense can go a long way towards ensuring that our actions don't come at everyone else's expense.

Nobody needs a degree to realise that blocking an entire pavement is inconvenient, or that failing to return a communal object to its rightful place is inconsiderate. My inner faux-boomer suspects that this growing disregard for common sense has something to do with our reliance on technology. With it firmly rooted in our society, we’ve become impressively good at outsourcing the business of thinking to our phones and the internet. Satnavs tell us where to go and which direction to face. Google has an answer for virtually every question, AI can write our coursework, and even help us navigate our romantic failures — no thinking required.

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with using technology to make our lives easier. After all, if you can’t beat them, join them. The problem arises when we become so accustomed to having answers handed to us that we’re blind to the obvious ones. Our reliance on the internet has perhaps tinted the way we approach everyday behaviour a little too much. These aren’t decisions that require advanced knowledge or particularly complex thinking. They simply require us to stop and think for a second about what we're doing. Which, judging by my experience, might be more of an ask than I'd like to admit.

Fortunately (yes, there is a fortunately, I know you were worried), our brains aren’t mush just yet. I’ll stop short of proposing we throw out our phones and start counting the days with tally marks on a rock. I, too, am a victim of my own laziness. But perhaps we could all benefit from pausing before immediately outsourcing our decisions. So let your pals know the breaking news: common sense may be legally dead, but it still has a chance of resuscitation. 

Illustration by Francesca Jeffs