a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment

    rather than attempting to memorize all the knowledge you'll likely need
I read some things a while back which suggested the 20th century brought a shift in the way humans process information, from Memorization to Reference. In Google terms, from "sort" to "search."

    to get the answer you need
In order to get that answer, you have to know the question. This is reference. That is, you don't know the answer, but you know how to find it.

Our brains are no longer libraries, but card files to the library that is the internet.

This has huge implications in how we think. It's not just that we're storing different information in our brains. Our very thought patterns, our neural pathways, are radically different. A card file is a very different thing than a library.

EDIT: I believe this was one of the studies. E.g. "We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found." and "When asked to recall the folder names, they did so at greater rates than they recalled the trivia statements themselves".