All that talk about how Google is making us stupid is a bit of a crock, according to a new study from UCLA researchers.
The study – which appears in next month's American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, looked at brain circuitry changes among 55- to 76-year-old volunteers.
Among the experienced web searchers, the study found increased activity in the decision-making and complex reasoning portions of the brain when people used the web to search for stuff, while the search novices did not experience the same level of activity.
"Our most striking finding was that Internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading, but only in those people with prior
Internet experience," the study author Gary Small told USA Today.
He also expects that inexperienced internet searchers would enjoy similar benefits over time.
Photo: Flickr/Liz Henry
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