"Tools That Change the Way We Think."

"Back in 2004, I asked [Google founders] Page and Brin what they saw as the future of Google search. 'It will be included in people's brains,' said Page. 'When you think about something and don't really know much about it, you will automatically get information.'

'That's true,' said Brin. 'Ultimately I view Google as a way to augment your brain with the knowledge of the world. Right now you go into your computer and type a phrase, but you can imagine that it could be easier in the future, that you can have just devices you talk into, or you can have computers that pay attention to what's going on around them and suggest useful information.'

'Somebody introduces themselves to you, and your watch goes to your web page,' said Page. 'Or if you met this person two years ago, this is what they said to you... Eventually you'll have the implant, where if you think about a fact, it will just tell you the answer."

-From In the Plex by Steven Levy (p.67)

     I think that extensive internet/technology use has lessened our ability to think. The need to be innovative and figure things out for ourselves has been replaced by searching a "how to..." site that tells us exactly what we need. There is definitely a fulfillment in discovering or solving something for ourselves and at the click of a button it has become rather rare.

      I remember when I was 12 and I had no cell phone, laptop, gamecube or tv of my own and my memories from that time were the happiest of my life. I would spend almost all day outside creating identities, worlds, building tree houses, hiding in fields, running through vineyards it was amazing. I feel like at that time I discovered more for myself than all the facts I've gathered from browsing the web.

     It seems at this point in time where all this information on history, languages, art, places etc. is available the hunger to learn and search for knowledge has been lost. Men and woman in the past dedicated their lives to the solving of problems and questions that drove them to greatness in their insatiable craving for truth, now with all this opportunity at our finger tips we do nothing even fractionally as important with it.

      We should be at the height of human intelligence rather than communication through technology. That is not to say that people today do not possess extreme intelligence, I simply feel that communication and our personal "digital print" has become the priority. Its like the internet has gone from being this unending source of information, to the morning news and chat site everyone uses.