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Are we subconsciously relegating and delegating stuff to search engines

Submitted by Druss on Tue, 2008-09-30 01:19

Earlier today, when I forgot the term mind map and later when I forgot Spinoza's name, I wondered if this was something I was doing subconsciously or if a few more of my brain cells are dying away as I get older.

I am almost perpetually connected to the net nowadays and with tools like Google, grep, locate etc. always at hand combined with my, if I do say so myself, considerable skill at locating things quickly and efficiently, I find that storing every mundane detail about a subject is not worth it at all. Simply being aware of the foundational details of a topic is usually all that is required. The rest of the structure can be built upon it using the tools available. Or perhaps, a more honest description might be that the facade of knowledge on a topic is all that is required - the rest of the building can be unveiled at any time :|

This is obviously not something that would have applied only to our generation... but the speed and ease of access to information makes it many orders of magnitude more powerful.

Food for thought?