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  1. All modern electronic machines that allow a person to interact almost directly with the information field of the Earth's civilization undoubtedly change a person, somewhere directly affecting hotel individuals, provoking the formation of clip thinking and the illusion of external Internet memory, or indirectly affecting the culture of society as a whole. But we cannot yet say that these changes are definitely bad, because it is not clear how they can seriously affect the lives of future generations.

    In addition to speeding up the already fleeting lifestyle, computers can make people's lives somewhat shallow and devoid of reflection, but they also free up more time, allowing them to spend it in a more diverse way — you can't say for sure, but these two sides of the same process probably now balance each other, not allowing you to slow down the process of social evolution. The same ambiguity can be seen when looking more closely at certain areas of life that have been affected by scientific progress: for example, it has made the means of communication more complex, further linking people to their environment, further inflating the information load, but it facilitates communication and reduces the fragmentation of a stratified society.

    The introduction of various kinds of smart machines into people's lives opens the era of information modification of the Homo sapiens sapiens species, which is accompanied by some risks that will not greatly affect the overall balance and will be leveled in the course of universal progress.

  2. How does the Internet affect your brain?

    Recent studies have confirmed that the constant use of Internet search affects the brain's ability to store information. Using the Internet, we are likely to spend less time and effort memorizing specific facts and understanding the causes, nature, and consequences of events that occur around us. The Internet gives us access and the power of collective transactional memory, allowing us to use a large amount of information for critical thinking at any time.

    Betsy Sparrow of Columbia University has discovered that using Internet search engines like Google is constantly changing our brains. Before the Internet, people received significant information from other people who stored it in their memory. But now we are increasingly relying on the Internet to get answers to our questions. This reduces our ability to remember information, as it allows us to remember only the links “where “this information can be found on the Internet.

    We easily forget about things that we can find on the Internet, and vice versa, we better remember information that is unlikely to be available on the Internet. According to the study, the Internet has become the primary form of transitive memory, a collective system through which groups collect and retrieve information. This system is characterized by some features. For example, it is better to understand how to access information rather than the information itself.

    The experiments involved a large number of people. Participants were asked to memorize a variety of information. The researchers determined that if the subject knew that the information was stored on a computer, they were less effective at remembering it. However, if the researchers told the participants that the information had been deleted, the subject remembered it better. If participants needed to find answers to difficult questions, most of the people surveyed immediately used their computer, without first trying to find the answer in their memory. This type of memory is called transactional memory. This allows us to store a source of information in our minds.

    People were better able to remember where they could find information, rather than its exact meaning. In addition, they were better able to remember information that could potentially be destroyed. The researchers believe that the findings confirm that the constant use of Internet search engines affects the brain's ability to store information.

    However, we should not consider only the negative aspects of using Internet search engines. There are some positive consequences of its widespread use. We can focus our efforts and time on understanding what is happening and the mechanisms that govern Internet systems. Transactive memory allows us to develop an understanding of the deeper meaning of phenomena and establish logical connections between what is happening around us and our own thoughts and perceptions of the world. Therefore, a transactional memory system can provide more “enhanced” information to group members than any individual member that has access to such information.

    A source:

    http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/fac-bios/SparrowB/faculty.html

    http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dwegner/files/sparrow_et_al._2011.pdf?m=1360040510

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactive_memory

    http://self-knowing.com

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