Computers can remove motivation for learning basic chess visualization...

I was thinking about why some people have problems with basic chess visualization and communication. I think part of the reason is because computers can remove motivation for honing those skills.

Basic Visualization

First, the ability to see the moves possible in a position. Also, the ability to visualize the resulting position after any of those moves, without making them on a board.

For simple practice on this, in your Lichess preferences, under 'Game display', you can set 'Piece destinations' to 'Yes'. Once that is done, when you click on a piece, the display will put dots on that piece's legal moves. Try visualizing were a piece can move first, then click on it and see if you got it correct.

Second, to be able to visualize multi-moves. By multi-moves, I mean seeing that if you were to move a piece to some square, where it could move from there, and then move from there, and so on.

This is an ability for which Lichess has simple practice. For a Rook, that practice is here, lichess.org/learn#/1/5 , and similar lessons for the other pieces are available. To get the most out of that practice, one needs to see as much of the solution as possible without moving the piece.

Third, to be able to visualize a turn-by-turn sequence of moves by each player. Again without moving the pieces. You can practice this in many places on Lichess.

Fourth, to be told a position to consider in some way other than by a visual board, and to be able to visualize that board. For example, if I were to say imagine a position with only a White Bishop on d3. Obviously, a large number of pieces specified in this way would not be "basic". Call this advanced basic visualization if including it concerns you.

I have a number of studies on basic visualization.
Visualization Exercises (lichess.org)
Advanced: Calculation • lichess.org

Communicating Chess

Now if someone is going to practice these, they have to be told somehow what to do. They can be told implicitly, like the Lichess multi-move lessons, or by drawing an arrow indicating the move, or explicitly by chess notation. Chess notation can be verbal or written or both. The various methods of indicating what to do can be combined in some venues.

Chess Notation

I, and many of my generation, learned and studied chess before computers. That included reading chess books and magazines. I would set up a chess board to follow the notation in these, and even multiple chess boards to handle variations. So I had high motivation to learn the notation (descriptive at the time), and to be able to visualize without moving the pieces; mostly so I could do away with the extra boards. When algebraic notation was adopted by Chess Life magazine, I was motivated to learn it because I had a subscription to that magazine, being a USCF member. I also had to know how to write these notations for recording my games; which was required in tournaments.

My chess friends and I communicated chess ideas, positions, and variations, using chess notation. We also used chess language; like opening names, tactical names, positional names etc.

My Study Chapter on Learning Standard Algebraic Notation (SAN)
Visualization - Blindfold Chess: Learning SAN
https://lichess.org/study/1HzNb63H/wXkZHz8x/

Goals

The point of learning to read/write chess notation is not to be doing that for its own sake, but as a goal to reach other goals. Those other goals include communication and visualization. And, of course, to get better at playing chess.

Motivation

I had high motivation for getting proficient at basic visualization and communication. Today, I can see that the sort of motivation I had can be missing.

It is too easy to let the computer do the work! Just push a button and the pieces move according to the recorded notation. Just move the pieces and the moves are recorded. Variations? No problem, just click inside the notation. Well, it might be hard to get oriented in that if you cannot read the notation, but people manage. Cannot visualize without moving the pieces? Play correspondence and you can move the pieces all you want.

So What's Wrong with Using the Computer?

I see nothing "wrong" in this letting the computer do the work scenario. That's because the definition of "wrong" depends on a person goals. If communication and visualization are in their goals, then they are missing opportunities to practice those.

Most people want to "get better at playing chess"; or so they tell me. But not having these basic visualization and communication skills hinders them. Every time they use a computer to play a move on the board, or physically move a piece on a non computer board, they are missing an opportunity to practice visualization and communication skills.

At some point, people want to communicate with chess players who are better at the game than they are. Yet they don't know the language those better players use to communicate.

I see people who have been playing chess for decades that do not have basic chess visualization and communication skills. In every case, they did not read chess literature when they were first learning chess; if ever. They cannot read chess notation very well; if at all. In adults, it is particularly difficult to learn a new language; and that is what chess notation is. It's a simple language, but it is still a language.

Conclusion

If you want to play better chess, then basic visualization and chess communication are valuable skills to hone. Learn chess notation; reading, writing, and speaking it. When you are using a computer, read the notation and try to visualize as much of a variation as you can.