In February one lab published what may be the first study to examine how internet use affects our brains. Gary Small and colleagues at the University of California Los Angeles used fMRI to study observed brain activation of subjects interacting with a simulated search engine. Comparisons between "net savvy" and "net naive" groups of senior citizens — young internet-ignorant subjects were too hard to find, Small says — revealed increased brain activity in the experienced Googlers as they performed the internet task, particularly in the frontal cortex, right temporal cortex, anterior and posterior cingulate, and hippocampus. The more active brain, Small says, reflects recruitment of more brain systems in the active process of browsing the Web. Such processing involves not just the visual and language regions active during passive reading, but also frontal regions associated with decision making and short-term working memory. To read more about this click here
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