has technology affected our ability to think critically?

Fully agree with you! I feel very bad when people especially the young lot go for a calculator for simple additions and multiplications ! They are becoming dependents on the machines and they are forgetting their self efficiency! They are not using the part of the brain which requires imagination and thinking! This is not only making our young lot materialistic and money centred but also making them emotionless, crude and Jelous! I used to be surprised why the young generation is not interested in the old movies , the answer what I find today is that they can't experience the moods, emotions and feelings which we used to have during our times, as these people have stopped using that part of the brain which is responsible for this! These people are becoming more of Robots than a Human being!

I definitely think that people (and not just the youth) have stopped thinking for themselves since we started to think of technology and gadgets as being essential. They're obsessed with being "up-to-date", and this in itself is being dictated to by the companies. There seems to be a widespread movement towards conformism in the West - perhaps conformism is the new rebellion. But maybe it's because they believe they need to be told what to buy, what to like, and therefore what to think. They're so used to living in cyber-space and in virtual reality, that they start to define themselves in terms of the perameters set out there. They don't realise how vulnerable and vapid they're making themselves. Part of me wishes that Y2K had crashed all the computers and systems in the world - maybe we'd remember how to really live, think and do things for ourselves then.