A recent University of California at Los Angeles study shows the effects of web surfing on brain activity. In an attempt to refute claims that Internet leads to shorter attention spans and makes people dumber, researchers tested twenty-four volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76 with MRI scans while the participants were given various Web searching tasks and book reading tasks.
The participants were broken into two groups - experienced Web surfers and those with no Web searching experience.
While both groups showed similar levels of brain activity during the book reading tasks, the experienced web surfers showed a significant amount more brain activity while performing Internet searches, much more than while reading a book.
What this means…Internet surfing doesn’t make people stupid. Rather, it triggers brain centers that control decision making and complex reasoning, which can actually help older people fight senility.
