Surfing the Web is Good For Your Brain

By Alex in Blogs & Internet, Science & Tech on Oct 15, 2008 at 5:00 pm

Gary Small and colleagues at UCLA have found that surfing the web may actually be good for your brain:

Each volunteer underwent a brain scan while performing web searches and book-reading tasks.

Both types of task produced evidence of significant activity in regions of the brain controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities.

However, the web search task produced significant additional activity in separate areas of the brain which control decision-making and complex reasoning – but only in those who were experienced web users.

Link

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Byrd Brain
Oct 15th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I feel so much better now.
Reechard
Oct 15th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I don’t buy the “good for you” part. The increased activity was only shown for those “experienced” internet users. Looking at people with photographic memories, they most often use far less brain activity for similar memory recall exercises than normal people. So more activity isn’t always better, it may just mean lazy and inefficient. Which seems far more likely but hey, I’m no neuroscientist.
Jeremy
Oct 15th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Wasn’t there a post about e-mail making people stupider?
Ali S.
Oct 15th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Huh. I would’ve thought that the deluge of information wouldn’t be too healthy for the brain.
Thomas
Oct 15th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
The extra neural activity is probably devoted to the eternal internal debate of “should I get to work now? Well five more minutes, can’t hurt. I need to get started but i guess I can check Neatorama first. I’ll just go another 1/2 hour.”
Terry
Oct 15th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
The University of California Internet Research Laboratory is funded by Microsoft, Google & Sun Microsystems.
renderanything
Oct 16th, 2008 at 12:29 am
I had no idea I have been doing right by my brain this whole time. Perhaps the gray matter is taking extra nourishment at the expense of the wrists, eyes, and muscle atrophy brought on by hours spent on the net.
just a guy
Oct 16th, 2008 at 3:35 am
Actually “the deluge of information” is healthy for the brain. Although information overload (in any context – school, work, reading, problem solving, etc) may make us mentally exhausted, it does improve thinking ability over time, similar to normal exercise. This is why people can use puzzle games and such to keep mentally spry.
gtron
Oct 16th, 2008 at 8:48 am
nice one terry!
also, just because it increases neural activity doesn’t equate with good for you – the increased stress, over prolonged periods, repeated daily, could ultimately lead to anxiety, undue concern with irrelevant issues and objects, and ultimately enhance ADD symptoms by creating a ‘need’ for more info… just because the brain is more ‘calm’ during a read doesn’t mean that a reader is worse off for it – in fact, more relaxed, more thoroughly engaged… it’s apples and oranges, and drawing conclusions from these findings is pseudoscience.
I truly beleive that I have gotten less intellectually sharp in the last few years, and not more, as a result of web habits. It’s funny that the web increases the opportunity for communication, but the form of communication is far less efficient – any time I have tried to discuss anything online (like the ideas behind something abstract that lead to me having a different opinion than you) I end up NOT finding common ground. when you are face to face, it’s easier to accept a different opinion. Online, you just hit send and set of on your continued ego trip thru the cybersphere – I ain’t no luddite, but this isn’t a better way. just watch to see who blasts me for these comments as proof!
CountryCritter
Oct 16th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Huh, so it’s just the surfing and not that reading that makes it better? I agree with gtron about the internet is making communication, verbal anyway, less and less desirable. Isn’t it sad that people prefer to use their cell phones to text than talk?
capella
Oct 17th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
This is your brain.
This is your brian on lolcats.
j33ry
Jan 4th, 2009 at 9:06 am
lol’d HARD at capella

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