If there's something that fascinates me about the digital age,
it's the evolution of the human psyche as it adjusts to the
rapid expansion of informational reach and acceleration of
informational flow. The Edge Foundation, Inc. poses one question
a year to be batted around by deep thinkers, this year: How Is
The Internet Changing The Way You Think? One contribution that's
bound to infuriate those of us of an older persuasion (I'll
raise my hand) came from Marissa Mayer, the V.P. for Search
Products & User Experience at Google. The Internet, she posits,
has vanquished the once seemingly interminable search for
knowledge. "The Internet has put at the forefront
resourcefulness and critical-thinking," writes Mayer, "and
relegated memorization of rote facts to mental exercise or
enjoyment." She says that we now understand things in an
instant, concepts that pre-Web would have taken us months to
figure out. So, basically, you don't have to memorize the The
Gettysburg Address anymore, you just have to Google it or l