Will Google reduce human memory

We both here do the strangest things at times and now no longer think it is anything to worry or concern ourselves about…in fact we now once a week review,who has done the most stupid ist thing of the …week… :innocent: :zipper_mouth_face:

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@butterscotch Yes, that is a possibility l spose butterscotch ?
That’s why l quoted the " use it, or, lose it " principle ?
As you probably know, our little toes will disappear completely in a couple more generations as we
don’t use or need them anymore ! The same can be said about our appendixes due to eating
cooked food for so long !
If we favour using Google in preference to our memory for a few generations,Will our brains suffer
the same fate??
Donkeyman! :grin::grin:

@Psmith What was that you just said ???

Donkeyman! :grin::grin:

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@Azz So from that article you quoted AZZ it seems that technology can be used as an exercise
for the brain to improve it !!
But does that hold true for Google ??
Which is currently being used to replace our memory ??
Donkeyman! :thinking::thinking:

I think until a principle higher than that of making money is dominant in a company… then you probably wouldn’t want to trust them as far as you could throw them :lol:

Google is an aid. I have (had?) a very good memory and remember a lot of things I have read, heard or seen, often in the distant past, but Google (or in my case DuckDuckGo) adds detail to a vague memory.

I doubt it will reduce memory anymore than Encyclopedias did.

Maybe. But maybe that will be OK. Lifespans were less than half of what they are today not that many decades ago. In another bunch of decades, lifespans may be even longer. Maybe by then it might be good to let a few memories go without having to store everything up in our brains.

Like the appendix, maybe its usefulness will change over time.

Storing up information that’s not personal but that people don’t want to be bothered continuing to try to hold in their head might be advantageous when people are living hundreds of years.

In the shorter term, Google is a mixed blessing/curse because people don’t know the long term implications of it.

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Remember at School, some folks were years ahead of their time, on the diminishing cognitive retention front, and there weren’t no Google then. :biking_man:

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What goes online, stays online…ooooerrr!

I’m sure their talents lay elsewhere, Spitty! :smiley:

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Now you come to mention it. :thinking: :biking_man:

The TV can send me to sleep. Googling stuff keeps me awake, food for the brain, gotta be good.

@butterscotch ,. Do you really think human lifespans will increase ??
Jesus, l hope not !! If it does then planet earth is doomed as far as biological life is concerned !!
What with human populations exploding ,and now refusing to die as well ??
On the brain issue, apparently humans allready have more than enough brain cells provided at birth,
And we only use a small percentage of them during our lives no matter how" brainy"we profess to be !
In theory we should not need “Google” at all ??
Donkeyman! :thinking::thinking:

@d00d l tend to use “codeword” and & “suduko” for that dOOdy !!
I find googling boring untill the info comes up ??
Donkeyman! :grin::grin:

@AZZ,. I think you are on the wrong thread AZZ ??
Donkeyman! :thinking::thinking::grin:

Well, it has over the last few hundred years, so it seems reasonable to think it will continue. Hopefully by the time overpopulation becomes a problem, people will have figured out the resource problems.

From what I’ve read, that’s actually a myth. People don’t actually have that much unused brain capacity, and if they did, they couldn’t access it anyway.

I read sometime ago that the increase in lifespan in the UK had flattened out and more recently that Covid19 had actually meant that in 2020/21 US life expectancy would actually decline.

The first one I saw graphs illustrating this flattening in the UK had started some years before but the second one might be speculation because I can’t remember the source so don’t know how reliable it was. Anyway even if it was true presumably it would only be a temporary glitch.

Yes, the rate of life expectancy in the US has been declining over the last several decades and 2020 had the highest rate of decline due to the pandemic. The declines had some to do with the high rate of drug overdose and homocides.

As you say, it’s probably a temporary glitch, but even if not, the increase in life expectancy in the rest of the world makes up for the declines in the western world.

@butterscotch So, is there a link between high birth rates and increasing life spans ??
And conversely, between low birth rates, and dropping life spans butter scotch ??
On the brain capacity issue you could be right about the are we using all of our brain question as
the information l used in my supposition that we don’t, was drawn from my own memory of what
l was taught back in 1948 !! And so is probably out of date ?? I tend to be a bit old fashioned and only
use Google as a last resort!!
However l believe my theory about Google. reducing our memory capacity over time bears
“thinking about” :grin::grin:
Donkeyman! :thinking::thinking:

It will just give another excuse to the can’t be arsed to be less arsed. :biking_man: :thinking:

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