Tools That Change the Way We Think

Please read the following passage and respond to the questions below. Write your answers as a comment to this post. Then, cut/paste both the passage and your thoughts to your own blog in a post entitled, "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)


Answer this not-so-simple question: How does extensive Internet/media/technology use change the way you think? Focus on your memory, your ability to concentrate, your sense of time and priorities, and the subjects/topics that interest you most. If you find "thinking about your thinking" difficult to assess, try the following strategies: compare yourself with older people who did most of their formal learning before smart phones and 2.0 existed; compare yourself with contemporaries who don't use those tools much today; read up on what education leaders and thinkers have to say about generational differences in thinking (and remember to cite your sources).

My Response:

The extensive use of Internet, media, and/or technology is awing depending on the eye of the beholder. As long as people don't abuse it, then there should be no problem using it. People should be glad that we have all this information within just clicks away from us. And I truly think its amazing that if I want to learn how to play the harmonica that I can find video's explaining how to step by step in just a matter of seconds. In oppose to signing up for lessons that I have to pay 30 bucks for. I personally can think just fine while using the internet and most of the time when I am looking up a subject it gives me new ideas to think about and those new ideas eventually lead me to look up more.
I think its funny how people keep saying things were so much better in the past in terms of technology affecting our way of life, because if you continue to look back in the past then the present will pass you up and you will soon be lost in between what should be and what is. What I mean by this is, you have to learn to co-exist because we are only moving forward.