What technology has done to my brain

When's the last time you wrote anything out by hand? A blog post, a letter, anything beyond your grocery list (oh, that's on your phone, too?). I'm writing this in cursive, and I'll type it out later. It's using my brain in a different way, which changes how I think, and subsequently, what I say. [As I'm typing this later, I'm seeing how I would have written sentences differently had I been typing them, but I'm editing as little as possible.] Interesting.

I just came in from sitting on the front porch (left my phone inside), where I finished reading The Shallows: What the Internet it Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. It's a fascinating and somewhat terrifying journey through the history, psychology, sociology of our interactions with technology, or tools of the mind. We dream up a tool, create it, but the using of it recreates who we are.

It's a book that should scare you into putting your phone down and going for a walk. Likely you'll Google it, maybe you'll even order it. But I would encourage you to also read it, to consider how what you are doing is shaping your brain, and how that changes who you are, your relationships with others, and ultimately the world we live in. This is a must read.

---