I'm curious what kinds of evolutionary biology impacts technologies like Google's search engine have on humanity. Before the internet, there was a large motivation to memorize information in order to quickly retrieve it without a very costly lookup operation. Now, a more efficient method to access information is to "index" the information with your brain - i.e. just remember how to find it quickly with the right search terms. This way, a significantly larger amount of information can be accessed very quickly by an individual.

I have noticed this in my own life. I consider my ability to recall things with Google to be a skill, and I consciously do not memorize pieces of information which I am fairly sure I will be able to find in <10 seconds. I think that using my brain as an index allows me to ingest more concepts, and as a result of that make more connections between concepts. It's definitely not without downsides though, an obvious one being a very high level of reliance on internet access. I wonder how this will play out over time, and if there are directly observable physiological differences between individuals with and without the internet as a form of memory-augmentation.