Racha Salha

SUMMARY

Outsourcing the Mind, by Gerd Gigerenzer

In his editorial " Outsourcing the Mind", Gerd Gigerenzer talks about how the Internet has changed our way of thinking. He first begins by saying how technology has become little by little indispensable in our lives, and how we are all the time addicted to it. However, and apart from that, Gerd Gigerenzer thinks that the Internet can have a good side, if we use it in a limited way. Indeed, he says that as the Internet may ruin some of our skills, like our "longterm memory" (p.148), it also allow us to acquire new skills, like the ones for "accessing information" (p.148). To support his idea, the author reminds us that the Internet is not the only technology that has an impact on our way of thinking. Indeed, Writing also did so by making "long-term memorization less important that it was" (p.148) before, when people didn't have the opportunity to write down their ideas on a paper, and had to memorize them all instead. But as the Internet, Writing also allows us developing new skills, as the "exactitude" (p.148). Gerd Gigerenzen concludes by saying that after all, the Internet is a technology like any others, and that as we may learn from it, we learn from any other technology that exists.