Google Thinkers
Who remembers memorising phone numbers? I reckon I could recall a few primary school friends’ phone numbers if I give it a go.
But if you’ve ever had that situation in the last few years when the power is out or the computer is otherwise down and you need to fix something, there’s this moment of reaching back to the dark recesses of your mind to remember how to read a manual (and I’m talking a computer manual, not just a toaster manual). Take a breath, check the contents page and realise you’ll need to check the index. Think of synonyms and make a mental list, bookmark some pages, and try to assemble some insights before addressing the problem. No online clip for changing that car oil, no blog post on why your TV won’t tune. It’s uncomfortable, it’s no longer familiar.
As someone who can’t watch a movie without IMDB open to answer my every question, I love having information at my fingertips. But I’m increasingly aware that a generation is changing – and not just because no one memorises phone numbers anymore.
The Economist recently published a blog article about changes at Google. In the midst of discussion about the pros and cons of Google Reader, they hit on a great point regarding information searching which got me thinking. The basic premise is that, once we become comfortable with a smartphone world that allows us to very quickly find anything we need – the nearest cafe/mall/train station, we adjust. Very quickly. And once we become comfortable with that, we begin rearranging our mental architecture.
We stop memorising key data points and start learning how to ask the right questions. We begin to think differently. About lots of things. We stop keeping a mental model of the physical geography of the world around us, because why bother? We can call up an incredibly detailed and accurate map of the world, complete with satellite and street-level images, whenever we want. We stop remembering who said what when about what engagement on such-and-such a date, because we have fully archived email and calendar services for all of that. And we instead devote more mental energy to figuring out how to combine the wealth of information now at our hands into interesting things. Those interesting things might be blog posts or cat GIFs or novels or theories of the universe or personal relationships. The bottom line is that the more we all participate in this world, the more we come to depend on it. The more it becomes the world.
I wonder if we take in the detail we used to. I wonder if our mental architecture is shifting, and I wonder if it’s such a good thing. The Economist blog wonders if this makes us more dependent on this world companies are shaping for us. What do you think?