The Hidden Cost of Cognitive Offloading

Your brain is constantly trying to cheat on cognitive tasks to save energy. It’s a phenomenon

called cognitive offloading. When you tilt your head to read a sideways sign or count on

your fingers, you are physically hacking the task so your brain does less work.

We are now dumping our entire memory onto smartphones and the internet. While this makes

us faster, scientists found a major downside. When you rely on GPS or Google,

you stop forming internal memories. You feel smarter because the answer is right there,

but your actual brain is slowly losing the ability to remember things on its own.