Precisely. It's another form of off-loading some of our cognitive processes.
While books reduced the frequency at which we practiced memorization, and thus diminished the average effectiveness of that process in man, they also paved the way for new developments and enabled us to devote further cognitive resources to other kinds of processes (e.g. pattern recognition, experimentation, etc.).
Smart phones, I'd wager, have a similar effect, in a perhaps more extreme fashion.
In spite of this, memory remains incredibly important...somehow taking the effort to memorize something, perhaps because it requires approaching the material repeatedly, also often leads to a richer understanding of the material--at least that's what I find.
I'm constantly shocked and embarrassed at the frequent fragility of my own memory, and my own susceptibility to distraction--and I spend no time on the common distraction centers of our epoch (facebook, twitter, etc.)--still, constant, reliable, and immediate access to the internet is enough to hold your attention hostage.
Another unfortunate side effect, I think, is a general decline in the practice of self-reflection. The most impressive people I know make a point to spend some amount of time in their day doing nothing more than thinking or reflecting--i.e. engaging with their thoughts alone--an endeavor that's ever more difficult to undertake when we're constantly bombarded with alerts and entertainment. There's some merit to those old disciplines of prayer and meditation--even if some of their attendant metaphysics seem antiquated.
While books reduced the frequency at which we practiced memorization, and thus diminished the average effectiveness of that process in man, they also paved the way for new developments and enabled us to devote further cognitive resources to other kinds of processes (e.g. pattern recognition, experimentation, etc.).
Smart phones, I'd wager, have a similar effect, in a perhaps more extreme fashion.
In spite of this, memory remains incredibly important...somehow taking the effort to memorize something, perhaps because it requires approaching the material repeatedly, also often leads to a richer understanding of the material--at least that's what I find.
I'm constantly shocked and embarrassed at the frequent fragility of my own memory, and my own susceptibility to distraction--and I spend no time on the common distraction centers of our epoch (facebook, twitter, etc.)--still, constant, reliable, and immediate access to the internet is enough to hold your attention hostage.
Another unfortunate side effect, I think, is a general decline in the practice of self-reflection. The most impressive people I know make a point to spend some amount of time in their day doing nothing more than thinking or reflecting--i.e. engaging with their thoughts alone--an endeavor that's ever more difficult to undertake when we're constantly bombarded with alerts and entertainment. There's some merit to those old disciplines of prayer and meditation--even if some of their attendant metaphysics seem antiquated.