I think it is basically apadting to the world around us. We have to adapt in this world to survive. It is after all it Darwin who said "Survival of the fittest." I would rephrase this sentence later in the post. Only the one who can get the information out faster and in more precise manner wins the war.
Now to emphaise on the point of technology making us dumb let me put down two points.
1) How many phone numbers you use to remember when you were a kid and used the Plain Old Telephone System? How many numbers do you remember right now after using mobile phones.
2) How many times have you finished a entire book before moving to another book.
Well I don't think we are getting any dumber but that we are able to adapt and able to relate far more easily than before. Our Human brain has more power to connect the thread now then it use to in the past.
Use of cell phone has made us dependent on the technology by now we have all number of contact numbers stored in one place. And yes we can also have backup for this numbers.
Now some of us do not read all the stuff inside the book if we don't find it interesting because we know what we are looking for will be avaliable in some other book. And the icing on the cake is that we can find information about such books using google.
Technology is advancing to help us and not to make us lazy and obselete. The ability to adapt is more important than one can think. Imagine your-self inside a place where there are lot of people using various gadgets, now if you don't take help of technology and finsih your work faster and better than them then you have lost the war. Whereas when you are inside a place where there is no chance of you using the technology then we have to adapt to the resources avaliable to complete the task.
So my agrument melts down to one thing i.e The power lies in your ability to adapt and connect. Yes we are getting dependant on the growing technology but at the same time we are growing and broadening our knowledge base. It is better to have the body of knowledge within us then to growing it on some external thing. So coming back to "Survival of the fittess" This has to change as we all know Dinosour being fit did not survive but it should be "Survival of the one who adapts." So I don't think technology is making me dumber but it is making me wiser.