@justforthelulz it does work wonders because you don't need to think about the number as much. It's essentially an external memory device that you can manipulate with a proper set of rules to modify the numbers inside. So, in essence, it's like a CPU, but decimal and way less automatic. The core principle is still the same, so it complies with the much simpler math and physics than our brains do. So, our brains, that work to search for probabilities, actually need way more energy than when working with an algorithm without doing actual calculations: we just move the abacus and it does calculations for us.
And it also makes us rely on it a lot, just like people who have calculators on them at all times (like small business shopkeepers) actually can't calculate in their head as fast as the people who don't, because they don't need to.