http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/if-a-time-traveller-saw-a-smartphone.html?utm_source=tny&utm_campaign=generalsocial&utm_medium=twitter

A well-educated time traveller from 1914 enters a room divided in half by a curtain. A scientist tells him that his task is to ascertain the intelligence of whoever is on the other side of the curtain by asking whatever questions he pleases.

The woman behind the curtain, is, of course, just one of us. That is to say, she is a regular human who has augmented her brain using two tools: her mobile phone and a connection to the Internet and, thus, to Web sites like Wikipedia, Google Maps, and Quora. To us, she is unremarkable, but to the man she is astonishing. With our machines, we are augmented humans.

Our limited working memory means we’re bad at arithmetic, and so no one does long division anymore (we use calculators). Our memories are unreliable, so we have supplemented them with electronic storage (thumb drives and the cloud). The human brain, compared with a computer, is bad at networking with other brains, so we have invented tools, like Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google search, that aid that kind of interfacing.

We cannot deny that augmentation has come at some cost. The idea of biological atrophy is alarming, and there is always a nagging sense that our auxiliary brains don’t quite count as “us.” But make no mistake: we are now different creatures than we once were.