Study: Internet is GOOD For Your Brain

Can Google make you smarter? Is the more you Yahoo, the better? A new study suggests that searching online could be beneficial for the brain.

Searching online triggers areas of the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning.

A study at the University of California, Los Angeles, measured brain activity of older adults as they searched the Web. Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA said, "One result of this study is that these technologies are not all bad. They may be good in keeping our brains active."

To study what brains look like when people are searching the Internet, Small recruited two groups of people: one that had minimal computer experience and another that was Web savvy.

Members of the technologically advanced group had more than twice the neural activation than their less experienced counterparts while searching online. Activity occurred in the region of the brain that controls decision-making and complex reasoning, according to Small's study, which appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Small said he can't pinpoint why there was more brain activity in the experienced users. In the study, 24 people were divided into the two groups, who were similar in age ranging from 55 to 78 years old, sex and educational achievement. Their only difference was their technological experience.

The subjects went into the magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scanner, which is like a large tunnel. The MRI monitored their brain activity while the subjects strapped on goggles, through which they saw a book page or an Internet search page.

They were given search tasks such as finding out how to choose a car or looking up the benefits of eating chocolate or drinking coffee. They had buttons and keyboards to conduct a simulated online search.

Their other task was to read pages laid out like a book.

"When they search on the Internet, there was activation particularly in the front part, which controls decision-making and complex reasoning. But it was only for the people who had previous experience with the Internet."

Liz Zelinski, a professor of gerontology and psychology at the University of Southern California, said the findings about the brain activity differences aren't surprising: "If you wanted to study how hard people can exercise, and you take people that already exercise and people that don't exercise, aren't they going to be different to start out?"

Research has shown that as the brain ages, its structure and function also changes. Such changes have been linked to declines in brain speed, control and working memory and other cognitive abilities.

Taking on mentally challenging tasks could improve brain health. Brain teasers, such as Nintendo's Brain Age game and computer programs are geared towards boomers and aging adults. And everyone has different recommendations from crossword puzzles to Sodoku to video games as ways to keep the brain sharp, Zelinski said.

Her recommendation: "Do something hard and challenging that's fairly unusual for them to do, something they haven't done before. The idea is it should be difficult. If you do a crossword puzzle all your life, it's not going to be challenging for you."

For many aging people, learning how to use a computer is a challenge.

The barrier for most seniors is the disinterest and intimidation, said Tobey Gordon Dichter, the founder of a nonprofit group, Generations on Line, an organization that provides instructions and encourages seniors to get on the Web.

"It does so much for the mind," Dichter said about searching online. "It allows for the mind to take where you where you want to go. It's on-demand information."

But it's difficult at first, she added. "When you're undertaking new frustrating tasks, like learning a language or how to use a computer, you're pushing those neurons."

The Pew Internet and American Life Project reported in a 2006 sample survey that about 32 percent of people who are 65 and older used the Internet.

Small has written a book, "iBrain," which examines the impact of technology on the human brain and said he wants to conduct further studies on the effects of technology on the organ.
Small encourages older adults to learn how to use search engines and said, "This could be exercising their brain and their neural circuitry in a way that's helpful."