We don’t constrain our mental powers when we store new long-term memories. We strengthen them. With each expansion of our memory comes an enlargement of our intelligence. The Web provides a convenient and compelling supplement to personal memory - but when we start using the Web as a substitute for personal memory, by bypassing the inner processes of consolidation, we risk emptying our minds of their riches.
Interpretation
Our memories enhance our intelligence, but relying solely on outside resources can diminish our mental capabilities.
In this quote, Nicholas G. Carr emphasizes the importance of personal memory in enriching our intelligence. He warns that while the internet can assist our memory, over-reliance on it can weaken our cognitive abilities and diminish the depth of knowledge we hold within ourselves.
In practice
In a speech about education technology, one might quote Carr to emphasize the importance of developing personal memory.
What the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence. The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking.
The United States is the only power in history that became great by giving and not by taking. I think the crisis was when the United States had more money than ideas. Money doesn't produce money. Ideas produce money.
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
There's nothing you can do to see — it is a gift.
Don't let anybody walk through your mind with dirty feet.
Knowledge must come through action. You can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial.
Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.