Big Picture Science - 11.12.22

A thousand years ago, most people didn’t own a single book. The only way to access knowledge was to consult their memory. 

But technology – from paper to hard drives – has permitted us to free our brains from remembering countless facts. Alphabetization and the simple filing cabinet have helped to systematize and save information we might need someday.

But now that we can Google just about any subject, have we lost the ability to memorize information? Does this make our brains better or worse?