When you start to write down your thoughts, you register what you're thinking and much more. It's the bio-technology of cognition. Writing is a sort of cognitive belt and pulley. Writing your thoughts, for example, gives you the possibility to build more articulate, even tortuous thoughts; you can re-use these more sophisticated buildings and add more functions to the structure. In short you develop a more powerful system of thoughts (it's not only a positive thing: ask the sabre-toothed tiger). How powerful is this device? Well, before writing, are you sure you have a stream of consciousness at all? You had a brain and a mind even before; true. Their activity produced conscious feedbacks; true. Your-self was deployed in stories; true. Then you had thoughts even before: of course. But it takes time (and steps in between) to evolve from bacteria to dinosaurs. Homo sapiens sapiens cognition stopped to evolve significantly in its biological features. The human brain is already at his maximum possible development (for anatomical sustainability).
Therefore biotechnology of cognition deployed itself in different stages of augmentation. A very ancient release is language. If you can talk and not just communicate, you can develop stories. The amount of knowledge you can transfer is huge. You can leave to future generations tricks about chopping stones, dangerous places, ethics.
Returning to our written technology, it becomes more interesting the empowerment you reach writing down your thoughts (and dangerous: you keep track of all your misguided and mental reflections. Bad!). In western civilization we had two series of writing technology: "diary" personal and private, "literacy" talented and public. Social media is the improvement that gives humans an edge merging these previously separated disciplines. What's the big thing? Sharing more information? Well, yes you share more information, but as we've seen with the other release of the biotechnology of cognition, the augmentation of your capacity is not just "more", it's a new step. When you use cognitive belt and pulley, when you can lift enormous loads, you build bigger shelters and, say, pyramids. Pyramids are not just "more" loads you've been able to lift. The empowerment opens you new things to do. Mechanics brought us quantum. And though a quantum is not particularly heavy, it’s still quite an admirable empowerment.
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