What does this quote mean?

[Brielle]

“As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our ‘intellectual technologies’-- the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities-- we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies”

Please help and be as detailed as possible

[Angela]

Media shapes how we think, that's sure.

The human brain is almost infinitely malleable.

People used to think that our mental meshwork, the dense connections formed among the 100 billion or so neurons inside our skulls, was largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. But brain researchers have discovered that that’s not the case. James Olds, a professor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, says that even the adult mind “is very plastic.”

Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones.

“The brain,” according to Olds, “has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.”

As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our “intellectual technologies” - the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities - we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies. The mechanical clock, which came into common use in the 14th century, provides a compelling example.

The mechanical clock, which came into common use in the 14th century, provides a compelling example. In Technics and Civilization, the historian and cultural critic Lewis Mumford described how the clock “disassociated time from human events and helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences.” The “abstract framework of divided time” became “the point of reference for both action and thought.”
READ MORE http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...id/306868/

As for the extract you are asking for, by using the tools (called by DB intellectual technologies) that extend/enhance our mentality more than our physical abilities, we begin to take on (=to be and/or behave like) the qualities of those technologies.

A good example that just crossed my mind, is the way we calculate things; when there were no calculators, we could do mathematical exercises even by calculating sums in our minds. Nowadays, we can't do anything without using the proper gadget and if a problem is difficult we either use yahoo.answers or try some special sites.

Another example is the phone-numbers lists on our mobiles. Can you remember any phone numbers? Of course, not. But, we all remember special features of our friends that have been posted to facebook or other social media.


AAA