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Minds and Machines

, Volume 26, Issue 4, pp 389–407 | Cite as

The Internet, Cognitive Enhancement, and the Values of Cognition

  • Richard Heersmink
Article
First Online:

Abstract

This paper has two distinct but related goals: (1) to identify some of the potential consequences of the Internet for our cognitive abilities and (2) to suggest an approach to evaluate these consequences. I begin by outlining the Google effect, which (allegedly) shows that when we know information is available online, we put less effort into storing that information in the brain. Some argue that this strategy is adaptive because it frees up internal resources which can then be used for other cognitive tasks, whereas others argue that this is maladaptive because it makes us less knowledgeable. I argue that the currently available empirical evidence in cognitive psychology does not support strong conclusions about the negative effects of the Internet on memory. Before we can make value-judgements about the cognitive effects of the Internet, we need more robust and ecologically-valid evidence. Having sketched a more nuanced picture of the Google effect, I then argue that the value of our cognitive abilities is in part intrinsic and in part instrumental, that is, they are both valuable in themselves and determined by the socio-cultural context in which these cognitive abilities are utilised. Focussing on instrumental value, I argue that, in an information society such as ours, having the skills to efficiently navigate, evaluate, compare, and synthesize online information are (under most circumstances) more valuable than having a lot of facts stored in biological memory. This is so, partly because using the Internet as an external memory system has overall benefits for education, navigation, journalism, and academic scholarship.

Keywords

Internet Google effect External memory Cognitive enhancement Cognitive technology Values and information technology Information ethics 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Neil Levy for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Ideas in this paper have been presented at the Third International Conference on Interactivity, Language and Cognition in London; the International Association of Philosophy and Computing Conference in Ferrara; and at a departmental seminar at the philosophy department of Macquarie University. I would like the audiences for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. Lastly, I want to thank the two anonymous reviewers, whose comments significantly improved the article.

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© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of PhilosophyMacquarie UniversitySydneyAustralia

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