Not only did calculators not make the average person great at higher level math when they no longer had to do manual arithmetic, but it made them less capable in everyday situations when some basic mental arithmetic would still be helpful. The invention of calculators doesn't mean that people go to the trouble of pulling them out at the grocery store to keep from getting ripped off.
> Not only did calculators not make the average person great at higher level math when they no longer had to do manual arithmetic
It's even worse than that: calculators can actually make higher level math more difficult (at least for me). I never developed strong manual arithmetic skills because I was a huge pro-calculator partisan in elementary school. When I got to college I really struggled with calculus, because manipulating equations requires arithmetic and that meant I had extra mental workload to operate the calculator.
