Skip to main content

What Internet is Teaching our Brains

Image
By
While excessive computer use can lead to conditions such as attention deficit disorder, depression anxiety and proneness to violence, recent research has shown that internet is not all that bad after all! The web may in fact be teaching our brains, subtly rewiring the way we respond, think and behave.
The book iBrain – Surviving the Technological Alterations of the Modern Mind, by Dr Gary Small, provides new insight through research undertaken at UCLA, and reveals that an hour of internet use every day may boost brain function. “We learn to react more swiftly to visual stimuli, improve our ability to sift through large amounts of information, and decide what is important and what isn’t”. This training is most evident when we scan our e-mails, quickly deciding and deleting what is spam, while focussing on those that are important.
“If you never use computers, then start”, Professor Small recommends. “As we found, even an hour a day can vastly improve yor infrmation processing skills, even in people aged 55 – 60”.
Internet Search boosts decision-making skills. The rapid spurt of directed concentration for internet research enhances our ability to focus our attention, analyse information and make instant decisions. Web surfers typically spend two seconds or less on any particular website before moving on to the next. In her study, Professor Briggs found that internet users sifted information accurately, despite operating at high speed, stopping only at sites that contained relevant information. She found that within 5 days of regular use, novices showed improved activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, that control our ability to make decisions and integrate complex information, indiating that the brain could learn and improve in short time.
General browsing however encourages use of continuous partial attention and multi-tasking, which can impair cognition and can cause irritability.Hopping from one subject to the next on the web without a specific goal, may lead to computer fatigue, as this person might be simultaneously clicking on websites, replying to e-mails or speaking on the phone.
Playing computer games may improve multitasking skills, memory and peripheral vision, but can also lead to antisocial behaviour. Hightened stress levels due to increased levels of adrenaline and stress hormones have been highlighted earlier. But not all games are equal; specialized ones such as Nintendo’s Brain Age and Brain Fitness Program have been specifically designed to enhance memory and cognition, and can stave off age related diseases and Alzheimer’s.
Use of emoticons exercises brain centers linked with emotion and social connection and can be particulary useful to those who use computers for long periods. Use of ‘smileys’ stimulate the part of the brain that is activated by one-to-one emotion contact, and can offset feelings of emotional isolation often seen during excessive computer use.
Benefiting most from computers and technology is however all to do with balance.” If you work all day at a computer, make sure you mix with real people in the evening, rather than using social networking sites or playing computer games”, says Dr Small. And if you never use computers, then start, even if you are a  60 plus.
 As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 6 december , 2009.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How do you like your Tea?

By
The way we drink our tea may not only reflect our taste and style, but our health as well. Tea drinking is around 4700 years old and had its origin in China. Leaves of the shrub Camellia sinensis (tea plant) were in use at that time as a remedy for wounds and diseases. With the legendary emperor Shenong brewing and drinking its extracts, tea drinking became a popular habit in this part of the world. The British, impressed with the brew and the customs that go with drinking it in China and Japan, tried to emulate and evolve a tea-drinking custom of their own, and soon “tea-time”became a familiar term across the globe. Every home or cafe seems to have its own flavour. The north Indian variety of “chay” is a glass of hot creamy milk (more cream as it gets more “special”) with lots of sugar and a lacing of  “tea liquor” of strong tea that grows on lower heights (Assam, Nilgiri, Sri Lanka etc). In contrast, the Chinese and Japanese prefer light green or jasmine tea without a drop of mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Food Fads in Liver Disorders

By
In an attempt at trying to do well to those they love, spouses and parents often enforce diets on patients of liver diseases that often turn out to be detrimental. The commonest food fad is pale insipid boiled cabbage being doled out to nauseous patients suffering from hepatitis that makes them puke even more.  The liver, in a way, is a buzzing manufacturing unit that requires lots of energy to keep its multiple functions going. And it derives all this from the food we eat. During disease, such as during an attack of jaundice, when many of the liver cells get killed, the liver attemptsdamage control by trying to regenerate quickly. For its cells to multiply however, it requires a generous supply of energy that comes from carbohydrates, and protein, the building block for its cells and tissues. Boiled green vegetables unfortunately have neither of these. Hence the situation often progresses to that of a starved liver unable to recuperate due to cut-off food suppl...
2 comments
Read more

Colas have No Class

By
Cola drinks, once a symbol of American upmarket style, is now to be found perched mainly on the shelves of road-side ‘paan walas’ and local grocers. True, there still are Americans who drink more colas than water, and consume an average of 2 bottles per day of the tangy fizzy dark drink, but it has clearly fallen in stature as offering it to visitors or serving it at parties is no longer elegant. Premiere schools in Lucknow such as La Martiniere College for girls have shunned colas from their canteen for the last 4 years. The story started with extensive campaigns by HOPE Initiative (Health Oriented Programs and Education) in 2005 creating awareness among the bright students about the long term harms of cola drinks. A heated debate followed in which the rights of an individual student  was pitched against the hazards of allowing gullible youngsters to be enticed by aggressive marketing to gulp colas and fall sick. The intelligent and alert La Marts students dcided on ...
Post a Comment
Read more