The Sociopedia

  Honestly, yes. You can still think without Google. But if we’re being completely honest, the more interesting question is what Google has done to the way we think. It hasn’t made human thinking disappear or anything dramatic like that. We still think, argue, imagine, remember, judge, and make terrible decisions. The difference is that we now have this giant external memory system sitting in our pockets almost all the time. It is searchable, ridiculously fast, and usually much more patient than we are. Research on transactive memory, cognitive offloading, and internet use suggests something pretty interesting: people don’t necessarily just “forget more” because they use Google. Instead, they can become better at remembering where information can be found than remembering the information itself. And honestly, that makes sense. Why spend ten minutes trying to remember something when you can type three words and get an answer in two seconds? The problem is that this convenience chang...