it makes you dumb in a specific way: you don't have the mental model of the program, so when you want to go somewhere to change it you are completely lost. it's like taking over a codebase designed by someone else.
Discussion
Ah, interesting. Yeah, sort of the way you can't keep track of where you are in an e-book, the way you can with a physical book, as you're missing the spacial orientation.
True. But as DHH reported, it also weaks your memory and your specific ability to manage simple primitives.
Everyone has already experienced this with GPS navigation systems and the associated loss of spatial orientation; this time the interested area is quite larger.