Mind Control vs High-Bandwidth Buddies

With the introduction of the internet, many people have taken a liking to its practical usage and overwhelming possibilities in terms of discovering information. In the article about mind control, there have been instances where computer technology has been used in order to benefit the lives of people such as Michael Chorost who received an implant in both inner ears to help him develop his hearing due to being deaf. After this change, he began supporting the scientists that develop technology such as BCI's or Brain-Computer Interface which allows a computer implant to take control of the human body (so to speak) and perform actions that were previously denied due to biological illness, mental illness, or physical impairment. It's technology like BCI that convinces someone like Chorost to agree to allow implants on humans in order to benefit there lives. However, it became apparent that as we use the internet for databases such as Google, we a re slowly becoming linked to specific ideas and generalizations that are connected with our character as a person. For example, a democrat finding predominantly democratic ideas or supporters as well as a economist finding results more commonly known to him/her compared to a scientist looking for the same information. This becomes associated with topic discussed by Clive Thompson which talks about the information we search for on the internet is similar to the type of friends or acquaintances we have. When talking, frequently, to a close friend, the amount of information we learn from that one friend becomes relevant to what our main ideas or beliefs are whether it be political views, religious views, or theoretical views; everything becomes linked to the same ideas when we engage with close friends making it unlikely that we'll expand intellectually when it comes to what we talk about. However, applying this same method towards Google and the internet, it is possible to still learn more about different topics due to the variety of searches done by other people, this allows Google's PageRank to categorize sites in a specific manner based on the amount of visits. With the amount of different sites being visited, but the same topic of information being researched, it is still possible to find new information on a similar topic using the same search, and when compared to the analogy of people and our close friends, the principle still applies. This shows that although someone like Chorost believes that we, as humans, should start integrating with computers in order to develop a bigger capacity for learning and storing information, it is still possible to remain as we are and still discover new ways of acquiring, circulating, and retaining information within our social circles.