30 years ago my math teacher already referred to our calculators (Casio fx82s) as “cerebral prosthetics”. I’ve always used that for our bicycles of the mind.

Computers change who I am, for example they make me remember better and be more punctual. Probably indeed my smartphone messes with my ability to hold sustained attention.

But this article. it feels like one of those “why so complicated” ones. Why “our consciousness is partly in a machine”. It’s all just a matter of definitions. For example advocates of EMT and non-advocates probably just differ in some definition. It feels so unimportant. Other than that, nice read.

I think it’s important to highlight this part of the abstract:

> modern smartphones are better understood as external to, but symbiotic with, our minds, and, sometimes even parasitic on us, rather than as cognitive extensions

“Symbiotic with, and sometimes parasitic.” It feels like the symbiotic bit is more on point overall.