Culture

Research Shows Internet Makes People Smarter

by Frank Liao | October 19, 2009 at 11:13 pm

226 views | 26 Recommendations | 3 comments

A UCLA research team tried to find out if using the internet made people smarter. They think the answer is yes, using the internet is like a brain exercise, especially because it stimulates the same area involved in making complex decisions.

How did they try to prove this? They conducted a study of 24 adults, half with scant internet experience, the other half, control group, were people already internet savvy. After a couple of weeks, brain scans (see picture) showed dramatic increase in brain activity for the naive group.

But it's still not 100 percent certain that the internet definitely makes people smarter. In the real world, it's hard to separate cause and effect.

but that study couldn't define what was cause and effect (maybe people with better complex reasoning skills are more drawn to the Internet)

"The Internet may be a form of brain exercise,” Small told Popsci.com. "Whether [the brain changes] translate to other aspects of life, we don’t know yet, but it’s certainly a possibility.”

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Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 01:18 on October 20th, 2009

Interesting study.

Dinnovation

at 02:56 on October 20th, 2009

This is really interesting, but I wonder if similar results would be seen if the users were learning any new thing.. it may be that what the scientists are seeing is learning rather than something exclusive to the internet. I wonder what the two groups did when they used the net. Lots of searching which involves creative use of key words and active engagement with content would, I imagine, be different to just spending time watching youtube pop videos.

Mritunjay

at 07:41 on October 20th, 2009

Incresed brain activity can just be a result of the quickened response rather than any long term "smartness". I believe if the same study is conducted on a bunch of gamers playing first person shooter games!