One day our cerebral cortex will be USB compatible.

Found this in my unpublished archives: May 2008. Hooray digging through the past!

My roommate wrote an insightful post about the YouTube Generation on her blog that really got me thinking (in other words, blogging). She pointed out how lost we would be without our precious internet not only because it's entertaining (can I just say that RSS feeds are comp-nerd crack? Because they are.) but also because it gives us immediate access to information beyond our wildest dreams. The world is quite literally at our fingertips. It's easy to forget this as we type our cute little emails, browse our cute little webcomics, or stalk our cute little e-friends, but when you step back and think about it, it's mind-boggling. It's no wonder the older generations are scared of technology... If I didn't know better, I'd just as well assume this series of tubes is witchcraft.

Sometimes I think that being exposed to all of this information is evolutionarily counter-productive. Our brains begin to rely completely on what the computer provides. In the novel Shampoo Planet, when one character forgets where a country in Africa is located, the main character replies:

“Fairs fair. I mean if we are supposed to learn all the new information people are inventing, we have to throw old information out to make way for the new stuff. I guess history and geography are what’s being thrown away. What is geography to anyone who speaks to people all over the planet every day all at once on their computer nets and modems?”

He has a good point though, when we have Wikipedia, CNN.com, facebook to tell us everything that’s going on, (or basically anything that’s EVER HAPPENED) we don’t need it in our heads anymore. Who really NEEDS to know when the Civil War was or who invented the helicopter (even though I OWN one). Did I mention I’m thinking of getting metal legs?

Then again, that's exactly what the internet would want me to say...

…c0mput3rs ar3 t4k1ng 0v3r 0ur m1nds!

Moral of the story: We rely a lot on computers. It's kinda neat. It's also kinda scary. Now go read a Douglas Coupland novel and watch Grandma's Boy.

Endnote: The idea for this post came from my roommate's blog , and my comment on it. I figured writing up an entirely new post would be a) stealing her intellectual property and II) harder than Ctrl+P. In other words, I'm thoughtful but lazy.