14 DAY TRIAL // A recent test on brain activity during reading and Internet surfing has indicated that the latter is superior to the old reading hobby, in that it stimulates more highly the areas related to memory, decision making and visual images, situated in the frontal, temporal and the cingulate regions of the brain. Still, when compared with book-reading, the regions responsible for abstract thinking and empathy showed no improved responses.
According to Dr. Gary Small, director of the University of California's Memory and Aging Research Center in Los Angeles, “young people are growing up immersed in this technology and their brains are more malleable, more plastic and changing than with older brains. The next generation, as Darwin suggests, will adapt to this environment. Those who become really good at technology will have a survival advantage – they will have a higher level of economic success and their progeny will be better off.”
This shows that this study may be an efficient tool in predicting how the human brain will evolve in the long run, in light of the constant development and usage of technology. The study, performed on 24 subjects aged between 55 and 76, has led Dr. Small to conclude that “a simple, everyday task like searching the web appears to enhance brain circuitry in older adults, demonstrating that our brains are sensitive and can continue to learn as we grow older.”
Still, there are some researchers that have slightly different opinions on this matter, namely that Internet should not be the only thing held responsible for such results in brain evolution and activity behavior. As one of them, Igor Aleksander – an emeritus professor of neural systems engineering from the Imperial College London – states, “It may be that by using the Internet you stimulate different parts of the brain. However, it would be difficult to show this could not be achieved through other situations.”