The Outsourced Brain - New York Times

The Outsourced Brain - New York Times

David brooks, always the keen observer of society, scores a hit in describing the modern 'outsourced brain' of man/woman. We are deeply connected with all sorts of electronic helpmates which guide us and shape our knowledge and twirl our worldview.

I think back to the days when salesmen went door to door selling encyclopedias for your children's education and yearbooks that you could buy for twenty bucks to keep current on what happened last year. We bought the Americana because we couldn't afford Britannica and it seemed more patriotic, too. That set of thirty or so volumes anchored the two bottom shelves of our bookcase for three decades. The books are gone now, replaced by an assortment of photo albums, maps and miscellaneous other books. The Internet is my encyclopedia.

Now if I want to know anything, it's click, click to Wikipedia or any number of sites that Google or Microsoft finds for me. I remain in awe of how much information has moved to the Web in such a short time and the enormous number of useful sites. I counted up my password-protected websites and I have nearly a hundred for anything from frivolity to finances.

I stop to think about life before the Internet and how radically different it was. And as all this capability migrates to wireless devices, we are no longer tethered to the desk; we can take it all with us, ad supported of course. Must remember to keep my batteries charged!

Wikipedia - Computers and the Internet - Encyclopedias - News and News Media - New York Times

Wikipedia - Computers and the Internet - Encyclopedias - News and News Media - New York Times

Click the link for today's Sunday Times piece on Wikipedia and the values underlying it. I think it's a grand experiment and hope the enthusiasm will remain vibrant in the dedicated people who keep it as neutral and devoid of junk as possible. It's a wonderful resource. Naysayers have yet to convince me that its model is any less effective than that of a traditional encyclopedia.

Try it. You'll like it!