# The Internet Cannot Rewrite Millions of Years of Brain Evolution by Mark Pagel > “The Internet isn't changing the way I or anybody else thinks. We know this because we can still visit some people on Earth who don't have the Internet and they think the same way that we do. My general purpose thinking circuits are hard wired into my brain from genetic instructions honed over millions of years of natural selection. True, the brain is plastic, it responds to the way it is brought up by its user, or to the language it has been taught to speak, but its fundamental structure is not changed this way, except perhaps in extremis, maybe eight hours per day of computer games.” > **— Mark Pagel**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [BRAIN CANDY AND BAD MATHEMATICS](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11172) — Edge published this exact passage in its 2010 Annual Question collection, *HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?*. The response page preserves the surrounding argument and qualifications. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2010 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2010 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first record for the complete response cohort and this passage's promotion status. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|Valley Roots]] - **Article:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|Never Going to Make It!]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Evolutionary Biology|Evolutionary Biology]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Evolutionary Biology|Evolutionary Biology]] - [[wiki/Epigenetic|Epigenetic]] - [[wiki/Epigenetic Modification|Epigenetic Modification]] - [[wiki/Genetic Recombination|Genetic Recombination]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “The Internet isn't changing the way I or anybody else thinks. We know this because we can still visit some people on Earth who don't have the Internet and they think the same way that we do. My general purpose thinking circuits are hard wired into my brain from genetic instructions honed over millions of years of natural selection. True, the brain is plastic, it responds to the way it is brought up by its user, or to the language it has been taught to speak, but its fundamental structure is not changed this way, except perhaps in extremis, maybe eight hours per day of computer games.” — Mark Pagel, 2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-mark-pagel-internet-cannot-rewrite-millions-years ```