October 15, 2008
Is Technology Changing Our Brains?
A new study by Gary Small, MD of UCLA in the upcoming issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry points out that a simple, everyday task like searching the web appears to enhance brain circuitry in older adults. It has long been thought that activities which keep the brain active, such as crossword puzzles, may help minimise the impact of age related brain changes - and the latest study suggests that surfing the web can be added to the list. 
To see how the Internet might be rewiring us, Small and colleagues monitored the brains of 24 adults as they performed a simulated Web search, and again as they read a page of text. During the Web search, those who reported using the Internet regularly in their everyday lives showed twice as much signaling in brain regions responsible for decision-making and complex reasoning, compared with those who had limited Internet exposure. 
The findings suggest that Internet use enhances the brain's capacity to be stimulated, and that Internet reading activates more brain regions than printed words. The research adds to previous studies that have shown that the tech-savvy among us possess greater working memory, are more adept at perceptual learning, and have better motor skills.
Dr Small suggests that these differences are likely to be even more profound across generations, because younger people are exposed to more technology from an earlier age than older people. He refers to this as the brain gap. On one side, what he calls digital natives, (i.e., those who have never known a world without e-mail and text messaging) use their superior cognitive abilities to make snap decisions and juggle multiple sources of sensory input. On the other side, digital immigrants (those who witnessed the advent of modern technology long after their brains had been hardwired) are better at reading facial expressions than they are at navigating cyberspace. "The typical immigrant's brain was trained in completely different ways of socializing and learning, taking things step-by-step and addressing one task at a time," whereas digital immigrants learn more methodically and tend to execute tasks more precisely.
These tasks don't have to be mutually exclusive and as Dr Small points out, digital natives and digital immigrants can direct their own neural circuitry and thus reaping the cognitive benefits of modern technology while preserving traditional social skills simply by making time for both.
Technology, and the skills it fosters, is evolving even faster than we are and according to Dr Small's new book, "iBRAIN: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind," a dramatic shift in how we gather information and communicate with one another has touched off an era of rapid evolution that may ultimately change the human brain as we know it. "
Gary Small, MD Website
American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry Website
Source:
Newsweek