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 feel like the internet makes it really easy to be lazy and just look everything up. I have no need to memorize things that I look up because I know that I can just find them again. It screws up my priorities as well. When I am online and need to get my homework done, I find myself watching random videos or going on facebook instead of doing my homework. When I am online, time flies. I'll be on facebook and think I've only been on for a few minutes. I then look at my clock and realize that I have been on for an hour or two and have been wasting precious time that I could have been using for homework. If the topic I am looking up doesn't interest me, I do not retain much of the information because in the back of my mind I am thinking that I can always just come back to the site if I forget what it said. The internet is actually pretty awesome when it comes to researching your interests. The internet is so big and has so many results for everything that you can possibly imagine. When you look up things that you like, you know for sure that you will be satisfied with a very wide variety of results.