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These fears have long been with us. In ancient Greece, Plato tells us that Socrates complained about the impact of books, arguing that reliance on written material would diminish not only memory but the very need to think, to debate, to learn through discussion. After all, said Socrates, when a person tells you something, you can question the statement, discuss and debate it, thereby enhancing the material and the understanding. With a book, well, what can you do? You can’t argue back.

But over the years, the human brain has remained much the same. Human intelligence has certainly not diminished. True, we no longer learn how to memorize vast amounts of material. We no longer need to be completely proficient at arithmetic, for calculators—present as dedicated devices or on almost every computer or phone—take care of that task for us. But does that make us stupid? Does the fact that I can no longer remember my own phone number indicate my growing feebleness? No, on the contrary, it unleashes the mind from the petty tyranny of tending to the trivial and allows it to concentrate on the important and the critical.

Reliance on technology is a benefit to humanity. With technology, the brain gets neither better nor worse. Instead, it is the task that changes. Human plus machine is more powerful than either human or machine alone.

The best chess-playing machine can beat the best human chess player. But guess what, the combination of human plus machine can beat the best human and the best machine. Moreover, this winning combination need not have the best human or machine.

Excerpted from ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Don Norman