The data
In an interview conducted by La Nación with scientists from Argentina, the United States and England, the following data were found:
Cognitive psychologist at the University of Stirling, Scotland, Tracy Alloway, conducted a study to analyze brain processes and concluded that Facebook forces the user to take into account new information about her friends and discard the old one. Such activity may help increase working memory and verbal IQ.
Research published in the journal Science declares that the Internet has become an external memory. We delegate to the devices the activity that the brain used to have. But that can help improve understanding, because memory frees up space in the brain to orient it more toward information processing.
Marcela Cohen, a neurologist at the Swiss Argentina Clinic and Maternity, states that memory seems to rest at this time, but other skills used on the Internet do brain gymnastics: visual and motor speed, deduction, concentration and attention.
Ryota Kanai, from the Institute of Cognitive Neurosciences at University College London, found a direct relationship between the number of friends a person has on Facebook and the size of certain brain regions. The more friends in this social network, the greater the volume of gray matter in four brain regions, including the amygdala, associated with emotional response and memory, as well as other key areas in communication with other people.
Kanai acknowledges that those studies do not indicate whether having more contacts on Facebook makes certain parts of the brain larger, or whether some people are predisposed to have more friends.
Mark Mapstone, from the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, believes that new technologies are tools to perform certain actions, and should not be used as an end in itself.
Internet improves the brain
One of America's leading neuroscientists and author of The Digital Brain, Gary Small, seems to lean more in favor of the Internet, although he cautions us against overuse.
Technology with moderate use can be our great ally. Using the web can strengthen neural circuits. That allows us to do more with the brain, expending less energy. Small's research, with people between the ages of 55 and 76, shows that Internet use significantly increases brain activity in areas involved in controlling decision-making and complex reasoning.
He also argues that the Internet can be a source of exercises for the mind and attenuate the degradation caused by age. But that happens only when there is moderate use; overexposure has harmful effects.
Diving into high-tech can accelerate learning and boost creativity, but it also has its flaws. For example, he has been linked to diagnoses of Attention Deficit Disorder and Internet addiction.
Spending 10 hours a day in front of the computer can reduce a person's aptitude for personal contact, such as having a face-to-face conversation.
Overexposure to constant Internet stimuli affects most cortical circuits and the outer layer of the gray area of the brain, including the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes. As a result, there is a strengthening of the brain circuits that control technological skills. But the circuits related to social skills are neglected. For example, we fail to capture certain details during a conversation, such as body posture and gestures.
Young people are the most affected by this excessive exposure to digital information. They spend more time on the internet than cultivating direct social contacts. A young person in full development is more vulnerable. With the abuse of the Internet, his brain does not fully develop the frontal lobe, the section that controls the most complex thoughts and our ability to plan.
