The Internet is Taking Over My Brain

Ever wonder what you would do without the internet?

I know people ask this rhetorically, and conversationally, all the time... but lately I've been observing my own ever-increasing reliance on the world wide web as a source of information and connection... and the psychology nerd in me is wondering, "What impact is this having on my brain?"

Not so much the mindlessness of what I'm doing online (although, there are certainly moments when I'm lost in guilty pleasures that are probably no better than vegging out to the television)... but the way my mind seems to get less and less of a particular kind of exercise the more I rely on my online resources.

These days, I'm forever going to my computer when I need any kind of question answered: How do I get from my house to the party in East Cobb? What's traffic like on 285? What's the name of that actor I keep seeing? Who would win a competition between Josh Duhamel and Post-It Notes? Which song do I keep murmuring the partial lyrics to in the shower? (That one turned out to be "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan). What are the mating habits of the duck-billed platypus?

There was a time when, to figure out the answers to these questions and others, I would have to track down a book (using a card catalog, no less - remember those?). Or, I'd have to ask my friends until I found someone who knew the answer. Or worse still, I'd have to be satisfied with not knowing, or just waiting for days and hoping it came to me.

But these days, gratification is instant and thorough. Before I have even finished formulating the question in my head, I'm at my computer, and in seconds I'm directed to the top ten people who are most likely to be able to answer my question, or more accurately - who answered my question months ago in some online rant or fan tribute or fit of utter boredom. I can do this at 2 a.m. or 10 p.m. or anytime in between. It's amazingly efficient, and one of the many blessings of our modern world.

But I wonder what's happening as our brains evolve (which, of course, they are). What's happening to those cranial "muscles" that I was previously using to track down or mull over factual questions and answers? As the little neurons and synapses do their speedy little firings, there's some stopping point in my brain ("The Internet Cortex?") where unanswered questions stop streaking around my brain, and are instead directed to the computer.

It's almost like the internet has become an extension of my brain (which isn't too far off, actually, since search engines and hyperlinks were all originally designed to mimic the functioning of the human brain). In some very fundamental ways, all those research skills I learned from third grade to high school are now being outsourced. And that means that my internal ability to retain information, or the critical paths for getting to information, must be decreasing.

Of course it is. Our brains pare away skills and information we don't need as we stop using them... why take up valuable brain space and attention with things you don't need to have top of mind? Why hold on to something when the digital collective is holding it for you? I've noticed that my ability to recall and retain information has shrunk over the last few years - partly because I'm creeping ever-closer to middle age, and partly because there's no need for me to retain much of the information I'm confronted with each day. I can always Google it later if I need it, right?

I don't know if there's any validity to my theory that parts of our brain are becoming atrophied because of our new easy access to information (or perhaps, being reallocated for another, far more interesting use down the line). And if there is, I don't know whether it's good, bad or just interesting -- at least to me. What I do know is that, for me, the process of going from "I'm not sure about that," to "I'll check the internet," has been reduced to a matter of nanoseconds.

I literally have no idea how I would function right now without this tremendous, spidery, instantaneous resource at my fingertips. And, for the moment, I'm hard-pressed to say whether I think I'm better off intellectually or not. Regardless, it's a phenomenon that will not be slowing any time in the near future. It will be fascinating to see how our mental faculties, educational systems, and intellectual cultures respond over time.

For now, I'll have to be satisfied with trying to stay somewhere near the middle of the technological curve -- which gets harder every year -- and content with the idea that while I may be losing my skill for answers, I can still ask some pretty good questions.