Google on the Brain

The relationship between technology and intelligence has been getting a lot of press lately. Back in August, Nathaniel Peters wrote about an article in The Atlantic which asked if Google is making us stupid. In the latest issue of First Things , Sally Thomas explains how, due to the way in which the Internet influences our culture, there will be “successive generations who know less and less about the ideas that gave us Western civilization, and who therefore have less and less investment in its continuation.”

Here’s a glimmer of hope, however, for those of us resigned to the fact that the Internet is indeed doing a great deal of harm to our society:

UCLA scientists have found that for computer-savvy middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet triggers key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The findings demonstrate that Web search activity may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function.

The study, the first of its kind to assess the impact of Internet searching on brain performance, is currently in press at the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and will appear in an upcoming issue.

“The study results are encouraging, that emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults,” said principal investigator Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA who holds UCLA’s Parlow-Solomon Chair on Aging. “Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function.”

One reason I’m hesitant to praise studies like this, however, is the way in which the baseline for “stimulating and improving brain function” seems remarkably low. While it may be true that searching the Internet is more challenging for the brain than watching television, can poking around a social-networking website such as Facebook possibly be better for our brains than a good game of bridge or a classic novel? I doubt it.